Microsoft’s purchase of Skype is now officially official – after receiving the proper nod of approval from the US Federal Trade Commission.
The House of M agreed back in May that it would snap up the video and chat communications service in a massive $8.5-billion deal. We can now expect Skype to invade Kinect and Xbox Live services and compliment the Windows Phone platform. Exciting stuff – if it’s done right.
This little bit of scepticism is far from one sided. In the month since the deal between Microsoft and Skype was revealed, the VoIP network has been crippled several times which might lead to some serious head scratching by Microsoft as to what they’ve got themselves into, and if it was worth the huge price tag. Hopefully the tech-titan can turn things around and iron out these flaws making Skype live up to potential. But as history can attest – with Microsoft nothing is certain.
Supporting the growth of Skype, Microsoft are keen to see their new aquisition reach outside of their own platforms and will continue to invest in it’s development on non-Microsoft platforms on smartphone and desktop.
For a social network reference this is the equivalent of the becoming ”in a relationship” – we all knew it was going on but this makes it official. With regulatory clearances now in place we can hopefully look forward to seeing some of the fruits of this partnership.
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