Skype: Has Microsoft's $8.5B Spending Paid Off Yet? Can It Ever?

mspohr writes "The Guardian has an article by Charles Arthur who predicted over two years ago that Microsoft's purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion was 'a gamble unlikely to pay off.' Arthur has penned a followup providing a fairly detailed analysis of his original criticism (he was wrong about some parts), an update on Skype performance, and a conclusion that it's not as bad as some of the other acquisitions. 'Skype, the company points out, now connects directly into Office 365, Xbox, Windows 8, Bing, Microsoft Messenger, Windows Phone and Lync, its business-oriented VOIP solution, and soon into Outlook.com for everyone. ... Certainly, integration of Skype into all those offerings is what the purchase should have been about. And it does look as though Microsoft has pulled it off. ... But has it pulled off $8.5B worth of integration?'"

And why...

[houstonbofh]

And why is it important to have chat built into my spreadsheet again?

Re:Does it have to?

[Fyzzler]

Is Skype disappearing today? If not, then Microsoft does not need to have recovered the cost by now. To make economical sense, they only need to have recouped their losses by the time Skype closes down. And that includes the funneling, loss leader and etc that connecting to all of these other systems will allow for.

You are obviously neither a CPA nor an MBA. The general rule of thumb is that an investment must have a ROI of less that 7 years max, and ideally under 3 years. Otherwise, you are much better off making a different investment choice with 8.5 Billion dolars.

$8.5B in integration?

[Chas]

Howsabout "Fuck No!".

HOWEVER, judging at this point would be stupid in the extreme.
This isn't about taking a single benchmark after a couple years and declaring it "worth it".
This is about amortizing the cost against the value the product's integration bring into other products.
Even with further development and support costs, if it becomes a foundation technology for Microsoft for the next 5-10-15 years, $8.5 billion will have been VERY worth it.

Re:And why...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think buying Skype was as much about buying the verb than anything else. People google things, nobody bings or microsofts anything.

Re:the future

[spire3661]

No we wont. We have had video conferencing in the hands of everyday people for over a decade now, with the last 5 years seeing huge penetration. No one is using it.