Your Cheat Sheet to the Good

4) Skype's telephony infrastructure will add nicely to many Microsoft products, including Windows Live Messenger, and could be as a matter of fact inventive once you start thinking about Xbox and Windows Phone 7. Microsoft could even swap out its new Lync Communications Service with Skype, who knows? For sure it will be more competitive against Google Voice and Apple FaceTime in both the PC and mobile arenas.

What Skype has already

2) Microsoft already has most of what Skype has already, and with more users. During it's great to talk about neat things Microsoft could do with Skype, the history there has been that it will take a long time to see strong integration in other words meaningful to the bottom line. It would have been easier and cheaper to buy other VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) carriers and integrate a far less expensive nevertheless generally as-capable research.

It bought aQuantive for $6 billion, and that's become a poster child for how Microsoft can't do advertising then; it sold off the Razorfish division when it could not as a matter of fact find out what to do with it. It paid somewhere on the order of $500 million for Danger, the mobile innovation company responsible for, among other things, T-Mobile's fabulous Sidekick phones, and at the time bungled it with bad products. There are more examples: Massive was bought for $280m and they shut it down; $265m spent for LinkExchange, as well shut down; Web TV was purchased for $425m and shut down.

The price is amazing

2) The price is amazing. Skype has never been known for spinning off profits - this was a big reason why eBay sold most of their Skype stake at a loss. There's no rocket science about what Skype has to offer - their software is a closed system that keeps them out of many cross-platform chat and IM products. Microsoft could build the whole thing for a lot less, and give away a lot of free phone service to convert users, and after all have money left over. There's just little to justify this price, except that Google and Facebook don't have it now - especially considering that Skype has but to make a sizeable profit.

3) Google can't integrate Skype with Google Apps, Gmail, Google Voice and Google Talk - and make it a core part of its Android OS.

Authors Danny Briere and Pat Hurley are telecommunications experts at TeleChoice, Inc. Mr. Briere has written more than 1,000 articles and has authored or edited a dozen books on the subject. He is often quoted in leading publications and can be seen on major TV networks providing analysis on the latest communications news and breakthroughs. Mr. Hurley specializes in emerging telecommunications technologies. Danny and Pat are co-authors of Smart Homes For Dummies, Home Theater For Dummies and HDTV For Dummies. Danny and Pat as well co-wroteWireless Home Networking For Dummies, 3rd Edition.

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