Microsoft Finalizes Skype Acquisition

suraj.sun sends word that Microsoft's acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion has officially completed. Quoting: "Skype CEO Tony Bates will be named president of the new Skype Division of Microsoft, and will have to report directly to Steve Ballmer. In a post on the Official Microsoft Blog today, Bates seemed unsurprisingly enthusiastic about the acquisition, describing it as a marriage of two 'disruptive, innovative, software-oriented companies. Microsoft is committed to the ubiquity of the Skype experience – communication across every device and every platform will remain a primary focus,' Bates wrote. 'And we've only scratched the surface.'"

It can only get better...

[Manip]

Skype is such a poor company which such a poor product that this can only be good news. I struggle to see how Microsoft could make Skype any worse than it already is.

The Windows software just barely works, and frankly the mobile software (e.g. Android, iPhone, etc) is just an absolute joke. It is great software when it works, but that is a rare occasion indeed.

Skype's "support" is actually worse than Google, and Google doesn't really offer any support (except Adwords). Even if you have a Skype subscription and a Skype number, you're shit out of luck if anything goes wrong or you need help. Worse still they just introduced a new techsupport package which costs you an addition $5/month(!) just for the "pleasure" of having them not be able to help you.

If you ask me the ONLY reason why Skype still even exists as a serious competitor is simply because that entire sector is full of broken terrible software made very poorly (e.g. Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Voice). Worse still nobody is really rolling out links into the existing telephone infrastructure (Google seems to have quit).

Honestly, this is an industry that needs a serious kick in the nads. So poor in so many ways....