Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype has finally been closed, the company recently announced. The plan is for Skype to become a new business unit within Microsoft, with Skype CEO Tony Bates becoming the president of the newly created Skype division. Users should expect for Microsoft to integrate Skype into a variety of its products, including mobile.
Discussing plans of the future after joining forces with Microsoft, the Skype blog said:
Joining forces with Microsoft is the best way to accelerate this mission and capitalize on our position at the intersection of social, mobile and video communications. Simply put, we want to transform communications. Also adding, “Microsoft is committed to the ubiquity of the Skype experience – communication across every device and every platform will remain a primary focus. And we’ve only scratched the surface.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how Microsoft will integrate the VOIP service into its products. In the future I can see business people conducting PowerPoint presentations over Skype or casual users making calls through Hotmail, especially since the mail client currently has no video chat capabilities. We don’t know what specifically Microsoft has in store for integration, but I’m sure we’ll have a good idea in the next few months.
[via]
