Microsoft buys Skype

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Drakulea

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Feb 23, 2011
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So, it's official. Microsoft has bought Skype for 8.5 billion, a nice sum + assumption of all debt.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/10/yes-microsoft-is-buying-skype/?hpt=T2

Now, Microsoft doesn't do things out of the good of its heart, so the question likely all Skype users (such as myself) are asking : When and if will the basic Skype package stop being free ?
 
Avaholic03

Avaholic03

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May 11, 2009
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I don't think MS is stupid enough to eliminate the free Skype option. That would elminate the vast majority of their users. They'll probably just throw in some extra advertising and let the profits run in. Or, if they want to be dicks about it, they'll make it exclusive to Windows phones, thus screwing any Android/iPhone Skype users.

Now, I wonder what Google's answer will be. I've never been impressed with their in house call/video chat service. I have no doubt they'll try to compete with MS on this one, but I don't know how. Skype is definitely the best VoIP service out there.
 
JochemDude

JochemDude

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Nov 23, 2010
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Nooooooo, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck,
FUCK.
My god Skype was great... Could we please get 2 minutes of silence for this.
 
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Alfador_VII

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Nov 2, 2009
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I wonder if they'll combine Skype with MSN Messenger?

Fundamentally they both do the same things, although of course Skype is more video/audio oriented, and has the capability to connect with the phone network.

Oh and you should try Ventrilo instead of Teamspeak as it offers much better sound quality these days :)
 
Danzaivar

Danzaivar

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Jul 13, 2004
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Sweet, here's hoping they use a lot of Skypes stuff in Windows Live Messenger. WML could benefit a lot from this!
 
EternalFacepalm

EternalFacepalm

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Feb 1, 2011
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Microsoft, yet again you prove I cannot trust you. Your war against the customers continues. But for Derp's sake, don't ruin Skype too. This is just too much...
/melodramatic
 
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Dark.Kantian

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Jan 31, 2011
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Why are people automatically freaked out over MS? Windows (at least up to 7) notwithstanding, MS has a decent record of service.

And lets face it, Skype had a shit-ton of problems with its service, free or otherwise.
 
Dexiro

Dexiro

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There's a reason I use Skype over MSN... because Skype doesn't suck. Hell MSN wasn't too bad to begin with but MS fucked it over with each new update.
 
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Drakulea

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Feb 23, 2011
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Dark.Kantian said:
Why are people automatically freaked out over MS? Windows (at least up to 7) notwithstanding, MS has a decent record of service.

And lets face it, Skype had a shit-ton of problems with its service, free or otherwise.
Click to expand...
Besides outages like those in August or December 2010, things go absolutely smoothly. I, like millions of others, use Skype to call/chat with another Skype. I can only speak of Skype-to-Skype, but the service is beyond reproach.
 
Carnage95

Carnage95

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Sep 21, 2009
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We should see how it goes, if improvements that are made are actually good then I'll stick around. However, if Microsoft screws us Skype users over, I'm switching to Google Talk or something.
 
Legendsmith

Legendsmith

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Alfador_VII said:
Oh and you should try Ventrilo instead of Teamspeak as it offers much better sound quality these days :)
Click to expand...
And like, a quater of the features, if that.
True, teamspeak 2 is very inferior to Ventrilo when it comes to voice quality. But It's still widely used due to it's ability to handle thousands of users on one server. This is especially useful for MMOs like EVE Online.

Teamspeak 3 offers compatible voice quality to ventrilo. In addition it also offers private user text chat, channel specific text chat (whereas Ventrilo has one text chat for the whole server). Teamspeak 3 also allows for a HTML sidebar in the client's ventrilo window, a feature that's very useful. There are a variety of teamspeak plugins, some of the most useful being plugins that lower the volume of games when someone speaks.
Teamspeak 3 has has the ability to give "priority speaker" status, a feature that lowers the volume of every one else when a priority speaker is talking. This is obviously useful for squad/guild/clan/fleet commanders.
All those and a raft of other things makes teamspeak 3 better than ventrilo.
The only advantage ventrilo has is slightly better voice quality and lower system requirements.
Ventrilo really does have potential, the developers just need to do something with it.
 
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tharglet

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Jul 21, 2010
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.... ahhh crud.

Just read the news on Skype's own site. I use the Linux client, which has been neglected for long enough, and despite the 'promise' in investing in the other OS Skype clients, it doesn't bode well for the Linux one.

Skype's long overdue a decent competitor tbh. I don't use Skype for gaming, but it's been massively useful outside of that. Ah well, let's see what happens to it lol.
 
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