"Wall Street investors were not convinced, however, and Microsoft's stock lost about 1% in regular trading, falling to $25.67. The stock is down 8% so far this year, while the technology market overall is sharply higher"
Where will it go from here. Personally I have used Sype for at least the past 5 years for both business and personal communications at times. Over the past year or so however, I only have used Skype for Linux (I have enough stuff running on my Win7 machines). So this question you put in the article for Microsoft's support to Linux does make a difference to me.
IF Microsoft doesn't butcher the application and suck all of the good parts out of it, then I think it will be OK. However, Microsoft really doesn't need another chat utility under it's belt. They already have MSN Messenger & Lync. So what great advantage do they have for taking on yet another system? Simple answer... more users that will become slaves to the Microsoft machine.
I suppose only time will tell as to how well they work with the platform. From what you wrote, it at least appears that there may be the potential for Microsoft to stay out of the way for some time and simply start integrating it into other platforms of theirs.
I agree with your point that MS is not always almost intuitive. But they have become almost that at least for the basics... writing, simple cell calculations, etc. and they have developed an acceptable tutoring help for that.
What I don't really know is if they have what it gets to masify a product as Skype which has so an enormous potential inside their usual business horizon of products. Your "experimente" with your friend illustrates the posibilities of Skype. Can you imagine yourself doing that within MS?
If Microsoft can sustain Skype's momentum, the carriers could be more displeased than ever by the prospect of VOIP competition.
If, however, Microsoft drops the ball, the carriers could be secretly cheering this move -- another possible reason why Wall Street has reacted negatively.
I'm fairly sure there is nothing Ballmer can say that is going to placate the telcos that this is a good thing for them (unless they plan on charging for calls and sharing the revenue, at which point I think Skype falls apart).
I could see the gamers being interested in ways to communicate better with fellow gamers, but that could prove tricky too given that you are playing with strangers all of the world.
I'm not sure I agree that MSFT products are intuitive. I know people who make a good living providing training for Microsoft products precisely because they aren't.
That aside though, it's not *that* hard to use the features and it's easy to find information about how to use services that you may not be familiar with such as desktop sharing.
As I stated in my post, I've seen first hand how useful it can be to have one tool that does a bunch of different services, but if you are typical, it's going to prove difficult to build the user base beyond its current size (and chances are many people will now abandon it because Microsoft owns it).
Totally agree. I love this post by Steven J Vaughan-Nichols on ZDNet in reacting to the Skype deal. He thinks it's completely proposterous that Microsoft bought this and that they spent so much.
While I'm not a Skype user, it does remain a viable technology (until there is wider adoption of another player)
Beyond the acquistion issues and the integration issues, another hurdle for Microsoft is the carriers, which often don't know what to do with a company like Skype.
Ballmer said he was on the phone today with his telecom partners to assure them that this is a good thing for them as well. Wall Street reacted negatively on the news (I guess they've seen too many acquisitions that get abandoned by Microsoft) - but if I'm an Xbox or Kinect owner, I would be happy to see this kind of technology.
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
The apartment and house sharing service, Airbnb, now requires members to verify their identities by demonstrating a presence on the web, and by either scanning a government ID or entering detailed personal details. Other enterprises should take a close look at Airbnb's verification policies.
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New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
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The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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