Despite the strong rumors demonstrating the competition between Facebook and Microsoft to have been in negations regarding the acquisition of Skype, it has just been announced by Microsoft, it has acquired one of the largest VoIP giant in exchange for the amount in cash of $8.5 billion. Microsoft declared its future prospective for Skype, as it intends to embed this newly acquired service into maximum of Microsoft devices and platforms, including the famous Xbox and Kinect, Xbox Live, the Windows Phone, Lync, Outlook, and all the possible rest. Microsoft has further also stated, that it does not intends to remain exclusive in this regard, and will definitely not discontinue the support and development of Skype on its own non-Microsoft platforms too.
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe deal was lead by the C.E.O. of Microsoft Corp., Steve Ballmer himself along with the aid of the company’s head of corporate strategy, Charles Songhur, which completed the deal on Monday evening as repored by AllThingsD. This acquisition is definitely one of the most costly one, which Microsoft has made so far, as the statistics also indicate that it is the largest price Microsoft has paid for any acquisition since decades. Moreover considering that, at the moment, Skype is not at all profitable, the deal becomes even more questionable. Even though Skype developed the revenues summing up to $860 million last year along with the operating profits of $264 million, on the whole company lost $6.9 million, as expressed in the documents filed with the SEC. On top of that, company also hase a large amount of unpaid debts, which also add up to a total sum of $686 million.
Having said that, the appealing part of the deal is definitely the largest user base of Skype, i.e. 663 million, out of which 145 million users are those active users which use Skype almost monthly. Microsoft even claims that this number of regular Skype users is 170 million instead, 8.8 million of which customers actually pay for additional services.
It was not until August, 2010, that Skype filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for its sales, after which the new C.E.O., Tony Bates took in charge of the company just months later in October. Now Bates is placed as the president of new Microsoft Skype Division, who will be directly reporting to Ballmer.
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