On Tuesday Microsoft announced the purchase of Skype for $ 8.5 billion, one of the largest acquisitions in the history of the Redmond company. The news of acquisition, followed by a press conference with Steve Ballmer, chief executive Bill Gates, accompanied by Tony Bates, CEO of Skype and Skype now responsible for the division within Microsoft, took the press nationally and internationally. The deal, which may seem like just one of the bustling market of information technology (IT), there are several stories behind it.
For analysts of the IT market, users should not be harmed by the acquisition of Skype instead. With all the integration promised by Microsoft - Xbox, Kinect, Outlook, MSN, and Lync Phone awaited Windows 7 - the software that allows customers to make video calls and voice over Internet, called VoIP, can rest easy.
Eduardo Tude, president of consultancy Teleco, would be a shot in the foot to Microsoft making any changes in services offered by Skype since 2003, many free. Even before the competition, Microsoft shall not restrict the use of Skype devices with Windows, for example. "For Microsoft, it's great to have its software being used on competing platforms. For even if they close Skype, other solutions are equal or better will arise and they lose users. Who can not appreciate having a Microsoft product on their devices' is Apple, "he says.
Fernando Lima, software market analyst at IDC, does not see the acquisition as a problem for the user. In your opinion, is very unlikely that Microsoft will continue to charge for free service or something similar. "I think they will not attack from that side," said Lee, who believes that Microsoft will leverage the knowledge and experience to add Skype service to Lync, a kind of MSN's corporate Redmond company, Windows Live Messenger (MSN ) and the upcoming Windows 7 Phone. "Microsoft knows, like everyone else, the focus now is the smartphone and that investment is needed to win the user."
According to Lee, the business model of Skype is that it is still poorly understood, especially in Brazil, but should be understood by mobile operators when Skype become a de facto alternative to calls made on smartphones, even in the long term. In many places, the connection speed also makes the use of Skype on smartphones, which conducts phone calls via Internet (WiFi) connections and 4G, 3G and even EDGE, like Skype on the computer.
Remember that Skype to Skype calls are free, but to call a Skype number for a mobile or a landline it costs, just as we must pay to have a Skype number to receive calls from landlines and furniture. The rates, however, are far below those that are practiced in most markets. For the analyst at IDC, the Brazilian operators will find a way to continue making a profit, even if only through data plans, as is already happening in Europe.
Skype already, within Microsoft, should be profitable to the extent that the software giant to invest in online advertising, a knowledge that Skype does not dominate and in which Microsoft would be interested. "For Skype, which did not generate much revenue, the only alternative was to join with those who can gain from your software," said Tude. In terms of online advertising, Google and Facebook are far ahead, and is precisely why Microsoft needed to get another product instead of that market. In this case, Skype. The experience with MSN, another major acquisition by Microsoft, but back in 1997, has taught him much, but it must do more to compete with Facebook and Google and their ads increasingly elaborate.
Internal and external competition
In those less than five days after the announcement of the purchase, even if they have read and heard about Microsoft's billion-dollar acquisition of a company that was not the "whole ball." Although a number of very relevant users, Skype has long been a company was not very profitable. One hypothesis raised by the press and confirmed by analysts, is that Microsoft decided to buy Skype to prevent it from falling into the hands of the competition. The president of Teleco, Eduardo Tude, agrees with this option, since he sees no "synergy between the business from Microsoft and Skype." In your opinion, Skype wins to be sold for as high amount, of course, but Microsoft takes nothing in return. In fact, Microsoft itself has software such as MSN, Lync and Outlook, as well as products like Xbox Live and your Kinect, which in the hands of good developers could reach a solution using only Skype and Microsoft's own knowledge.
Tude says that Skype would be in better hands if it had ended up on Facebook or Google, and knowledge of social networks that have these two great companies. Ballmer, in a news conference on the acquisition of Skype, said the purchase motivate Microsoft to take a step toward integrating the social goods and services on a single platform, but at no point explained how this would happen. "EBay has also pledged an integration when it bought Skype and nothing has been done so far," said Tude. In 2005, eBay bought Skype for its founders, Niklas Zennström Swedish, Danish Frii Janus - two makers of file-sharing site known as Kazaa - but in 2009 sold part of Skype for the investment fund Silver Lake. "It's easier to create a Facebook Skype, Microsoft to create a Facebook" concludes Tude.
"What really matters to Microsoft's user base," said Tude, who also reinforced that with Skype, Microsoft can gain more space on the Internet, which is represented by the MSN search engine and the Bing, but still it is very close to their competitors. Today, Skype has 170 million users worldwide, which passed 207 billion minutes talking voice and video in 2010.
In the opinion of Fernando Lima, in fact, to Microsoft, Skype was more important than for its competitors. "Facebook's strategy is still unclear, and Google has their own tools. For Microsoft it's good, because Skype is a very strong brand in the market," he said.
IDC analyst also noted Cisco's former company of Tony Bates before going to Skype at the end of last year, and would be interested in having more space in the telecommunications market. Cisco's biggest competitor in Microsoft's unified communications solutions, products that have messaging, VoIP and other services geared to businesses. However, Cisco is not in their best financial moment. On Friday, Cisco Systems announced that it must lay off thousands of employees to accomplish the goal of cutting costs of U.S. $ 1 billion announced by chief executive John Chambers.
Fernando also reinforced that while Apple, Google and Facebook are competitors, Microsoft has a space in the corporate world that others do not. "Still, it is difficult to say that these big players dominate the platforms used by users because this is a market that is always changing, and tomorrow there might be another strong competitor." After all, the start-ups - young and innovative companies percise investment - as was once Facebook and Twitter, are out there.
