Published at LXer:

Microsoft Corp. is close to a deal to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies SA for between $7 billion and $8 billion—the most aggressive move yet by Microsoft to play in the increasingly-converged worlds of communication, information and entertainment.

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It might be a good thing. Once MS owns it, they are likely to discontinue Linux and Mac versions, which, in turn, might speed up the development of a similar but open and cross-system platform.

Well, say goodbye to the Linux client, even if it sucked.

M$ just gobbles up everything, when will it stop ? Maybe one day, everything will be made by M$, or licensed by it.

EDIT: On that note, Ekiga and Qutecom and good alternatives to Skype ...

In searching for an alternative, due to the news, I came across Gizmo, but reading about it on Wikipedia, I saw this:
'On November 12, 2009, Google announced that it had acquired Gizmo5.[1] On March 4, 2011, Google announced that the service will be discontinued as of April 3, 2011'
I know nothing about the politics or otherwise about this, but the cynic in me shall be expecting the same from MS in the near future.

Cheers!
CJ

They want to just kill it ? I doubt it. Skype is relatively popular.

I don't think the problem has ever been alternatives to Skype, the problem is that the alternatives don't work with Skype. If the people you want to talk to are on Skype, you don't really have an option but to use Skype. And unfortunately, none of the SIP alternatives have anywhere near the user base that Skype does and in this market, the one with the most "customers" wins. And since Microsoft just loves it some vendor lock-in, I don't expect that Skype will suddenly start sharing their protocol. Or start using SIP.

Rather than killing it, I suspect Skype is just going to stagnate after getting mired in internal Microsoft politics. Then it'll probably get spun out or sold for a massive loss/tax write-off when the MS board finally pulls its collective head out and realizes that Ballmer is a complete idiot and fires him.

So, you mean you can't convince your friends to install an SIP client ? ... then why call them friends ?

That's a bit harsh, isn't it?

I don't see my friends giving up their (skype) friends, either.

I don't see why I should use skype just because they do, especially since I can't use it.

Actually my problem isn't so much my friends as my clients. You don't bite the hand that signs the checks.

You can't use it? Your network block it or something?

I'm running 64-bit, and it no longer works with multilib for some reason. It just keeps crashing. It doesn't matter anymore, because it is done:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/10/mic...cquires-skype/

Weird. I'm running 64-bit multilib (Alien Bob Approved) and Skype is stable. It sucks, but it is stable.

Ah well, this is Microsoft we're talking about so it is just a matter of time before they do something profoundly stupid with Skype and lose all their customers. Since that is the pattern with pretty much all of their acquisitions, I expect history will repeat itself. The truly unfortunate part is that even if they lost the whole $8.5 billion, it really wouldn't matter much to Microsoft.

Well, I think it is a good thing. Now people will look for alternatives, because they are forced to.