Skype is free to use, won't making 8.5 billion from it be hard? :)

I think MS execs have an idea what they are doing. Just like someone posted in the other thread:

For starters, the firm gets well over 600 million users who make Skype the world's largest phone company for international voice calls.

More importantly, Microsoft buys into a lot of potential.

Marry Skype's software with the Xbox Kinect and an HD television set, and Microsoft can make a powerful argument for getting into millions of living rooms.

Think beyond teleconferencing for the whole family: there's one-on-one training, home schooling, even patient care delivered remotely and in vision.

Smarten it up for the corporate world, and Microsoft can challenge the telepresence business of firms like Cisco and Polycom.

And Skype is multi-platform, reaching into the worlds of Apple and Linux.

Finally, Skype is mobile, and can be paired with Windows Phone 7.

They can get a big leg into telecom.

They can get one leg up on Google, promoting Bing to Skype audience.

They can try and build hardware to shake hardware makers out of the market.

Unfortunately, since Bill Gates is in Foundations, which means he is accepted into the Big Boys "Oligarchs" Club, i.e. allowed to do anything (including, of course, tax avoidance via "foundations") , of course this is not blocked in Europe (where Bill's buddies-oligarchs control pretty much everything).

What you should all be afraid of is you, all your friends and buddies with your phone calls and video on Bill's one giant cloud "harddrive". To poke, proble , market and sell. Video search for "mesothelioma cancer", anyone?

I'm sure they know what they're doing, or at least what the will try to do, but people don't want to a)pay for it or b)be data mined and promoted to as a result.

If it's to be leveraged into Bing to promote search YES PLEASE but if it's to try and generate income as a standalone product... bleh.

Skye integrated into bing's search page would be cool actually and a little "make bing your default search engine" button beside it might increase MS search share.

But what do I know.

What you should all be afraid of is you, all your friends and buddies with your phone calls and video on Bill's one giant cloud "harddrive". To poke, proble , market and sell.

When it comes to trusting somone with my personal information I'de trust Bill more then Google. Bill had enough time and all the power and money in the world to go for complete world domination and guess what....he didn't. Google on the other hand.... well many of us here know quite well what they have been busy doing all along.

A lot of these things seem nice on paper but in reality never work out, so it remains to be seen. They could probably do something with xBox, I was amazed at how popular xbox live it is, so maybe give them free phone calls or whatever skype offers. Now they added a lot of cable channels to it so for many it has become the entertainment center.

I used to hate Microsoft but lately I have had a change of heart: my old computers are working without a hitch for 3-6 years (I even have Word 1997 in one!) and some of their new products are actually very good. Despite all their bad press they just kept going, minting money and coming up with pretty new products. Turns out their cloud service is fastest, Windows is now extremely stable, Mango is pretty good and now they are no longer handicapped by anti-trust.

When it comes to trusting somone with my personal information I'de trust Bill more then Google. Bill had enough time and all the power and money in the world to go for complete world domination and guess what....he didn't. Google on the other hand.... well many of us here know quite well what they have been busy doing all along.

Web_speed, Google is monetizing user's info in an incredible way, you can tell by their earnings in their one trick pony.

Bill had enough time and all the power and money in the world to go for complete world domination and guess what....he didn't

MS have been far, far worse than Google

Apart form killing even the slightest show of competition. artificially bundling products, penalising distributors who sold competitors products, rigging the votes at the ISO...

Skype is the dominant player in this market. There is no real competition, so letting one of the other big players buy Skype is very bad for consumers. Its like allow MS to merge Apple.

The other problem is that MS will use Skype to push other products and vice-versa - as they bundled IE with Windows. Competition law and regulators have simply not caught up with problems like that.

And Skype is multi-platform, reaching into the worlds of Apple and Linux.

Not for long, perhaps!

Skype for Linux will definitely disappear: MS has an (arguably irrational) hatred for Linux : I am thinking of the "cancer" and "un-American" comments.

MS have been far, far worse than Google

The FACTS show otherwise... MS is the company who brought the Internet to the mass (win95 anyone ?). MS is the one bringing businesses to the 21st century with brilliant user friendly OP systems, office and desktop applications. MS is the company beyond the explosion of software production for the PC platform in the last 12 years.

Bill in my opinion is the real Edison of our times.

Yes MS may have competed unfairly, disadvantaging a small number of hardware and software producers but they are far far from suppressing and regulating world business the way Google does on dialy bassis of late.

While MS where competing with a small list of big hardware & Software manufacturers. Google are competing with a huge list of small to large buinsesses the world over and on countless diffrent markets. They are the true and most dangerous cancer of our times IMO.

What you should all be afraid of is you, all your friends and buddies with your phone calls and video on Bill's one giant cloud "harddrive". To poke, proble , market and sell. Video search for "mesothelioma cancer", anyone?

huh what? are you getting MS confused with goog?

MS is the company who brought the Internet to the mass (win95 anyone ?).

Riight. The last OS to get a TCP/IP stack (and that was copied from BSD) is the one that brought the internet to the masses.

MS is the one bringing businesses to the 21st century with brilliant user friendly OP systems, office and desktop applications

If MS software is brilliantly user friendly, I am a banana. Most of the good things they do are copied from someone else.

They are the biggest because they are good at making deals, and got a very favourable contract from IBM that made them what they are today.

MS is the company beyond the explosion of software production for the PC platform in the last 12 years.

Software started exploding long before that. Lots of people had home computers long before MS was anything more than small player. Businesses started using desktop computers when useful software like Visicalc (now that was innovative) came out.

they are far far from suppressing and regulating world business the way Google does on dialy bassis of late.

How does Google regulate "world business"? Its just a search engine (with some other services attached). Yes, they heavily influence traffic to websites, but that is of little importance to all the non-internet based businesses (anyone from the small shop at the bottom of my road, to Glaxosmithkline) and of little importance even to websites that have their own traffic sources (Facebook, Amazon, any forum with a strong community,...).

@J_Rad Ms are more frightening because of the width of their operations. They can tie everything from X-box to Windows phones to PCs into their cloud.

Temenos just launched a banking system that will run on the MS cloud (I really do not want my bank keeping my data on anyone else's server).

Incidentally, the long rumoured government back doors into Windows have just been found, and its not just the US government. The German version of Windows has a backdoor for the German government [f-secure.com ]

If MS software is brilliantly user friendly, I am a banana.

This statement puts you in a very small minority. Statistically, more then 70% (if not more) PCs in the world run some version of windows. Its the case ONLY because it is a brilliant user friendly op system.

You can not argue with facts...

Software started exploding long before that. Lots of people had home computers long before MS was anything more than small player. Businesses started using desktop computers when useful software like Visicalc (now that was innovative) came out.

Software explosion for the PC platform started when MS came out with the first version of Visual Basic. It is only then when the software production graph for the PC world wide went high-wire. It is VB.net that is fulling software production and growth at present!

Look, one can hate MS as much as he/she likes but facts are facts. They are the ones well and truly beyond nowadays Internet to the masses and software production growth. The rest just playing catch up.

How does Google regulate "world business"? Its just a search engine (with some other services attached).

Now that's a major understatement. Unfortunately Google has virtually become the gateway to the internet. It is no longer "just" a "search engine" and every IT professional with more then 1-2 years of web marketing experience will confirm that. Is there a major Senate anti-trust enquiry going into these issues or is it just my imagination?

Again, one can't argue with facts...

Software started exploding long before that. Lots of people had home computers long before MS was anything more than small player. Businesses started using desktop computers when useful software like Visicalc (now that was innovative) came out.

You are confusing 'use' with revolution and one PC in every home. You can dislike them, but you have to give credit where credit is due.

How does Google regulate "world business"? Its just a search engine (with some other services attached). Yes, they heavily influence traffic to websites, but that is of little importance to all the non-internet based businesses (anyone from the small shop at the bottom of my road, to Glaxosmithkline) and of little importance even to websites that have their own traffic sources (Facebook, Amazon, any forum with a strong community,...).

Well, you do have a sense of humor, especially since everything has moved or is moving online. How does MS effect a small merchant in Iowa? It does not at all, Google can kill them unless they pay up to Google.

Temenos just launched a banking system that will run on the MS cloud (I really do not want my bank keeping my data on anyone else's server).

Google or Amazon cloud makes you feel safer? Or just don't use Tenemos.

Incidentally, the long rumoured government back doors into Windows have just been found, and its not just the US government. The German version of Windows has a backdoor for the German government [f-secure.com ]

Backdoor put by MS or the German government? I seriously doubt that MS would ruin their product with this. The German gov can ask Google for every search you have made in the past 2+ years, and every site you have ever visited. Now that's a trojan.

If MS software is brilliantly user friendly, I am a banana. Most of the good things they do are copied from someone else.

They are the biggest because they are good at making deals, and got a very favourable contract from IBM that made them what they are today.

Love them or hate them, they have a 30+ year history and dozens and dozens of top products [microsoft.com...] . They are not a one trick pony like a certain company. MS software is user friendly enough for 95% of people, go and use Linux :)

Statistically, more then 70% (if not more) PCs in the world run some version of windows. Its the case ONLY because it is a brilliant user friendly op system.

Its the only choice most people know about. All most all PCs available retail have Windows pre-installed.

Software explosion for the PC platform started when MS came out with the first version of Visual Basic. It is only then when the software production graph for the PC world wide went high-wire. It is VB.net that is fulling software production and growth at present!

You are re-writing history. Computers were already exploding: ever heard of the Apple II? Commodore? Sinclair? Atari?

MS got their chance because IBM were jumping on the bandwagon before it was too late.

Well, you do have a sense of humor, especially since everything has moved or is moving online. How does MS effect a small merchant in Iowa? It does not at all, Google can kill them unless they pay up to Google.

I know plenty of successful online businesses who have never paid Google a penny. If I look at my own expenditure only a fraction is online, and most of that goes to either sites I go straight to (Amazon, for example) or after sifting through both known brands and multiple web searches to find the best deal (I recently hired a car that way).

Is there a major Senate anti-trust enquiry going into these issues or is it just my imagination?

Google are suspected by the Senate, MS were found guilty in court. What MS was accused of was much worse (secret deal making, bundling, etc.) and no one even tried to deny they did the equivalent of what Google did (e.g. by giving MS Office developers access to undocumented Windows APIs)

Backdoor put by MS or the German government? I seriously doubt that MS would ruin their product with this. The German gov can ask Google for every search you have made in the past 2+ years, and every site you have ever visited.

How would Google identify me? They would have to first get my ISP to give them the list of all IP addresses I used the last two years, and then match that to Google's records.

MS software is user friendly enough for 95% of people

That is the 95% who do not know anything else exists, or how to get it. The fact that Macs took off as soon as Apple go the resources to start marketing effectively shows that people will switch given a change.

One reason tablets are being much more successful than netbooks is because they are genuinely user friendly. The first generation of Linux tablets were spectacularly successful, after switching to Windows sales seem to have stagnated. Now Android tablets are taking over.

The defence of Microsoft and its products relies on re-writing history and ignoring the facts, and the attack on Google is just paranoia.

The defence of Microsoft and its products relies on re-writing history and ignoring the facts, and the attack on Google is just paranoia.

Great sense of humor indeed... :-)

That is the 95% who do not know anything else exists, or how to get it. The fact that Macs took off as soon as Apple go the resources to start marketing effectively shows that people will switch given a change.

One reason tablets are being much more successful than netbooks is because they are genuinely user friendly. The first generation of Linux tablets were spectacularly successful, after switching to Windows sales seem to have stagnated. Now Android tablets are taking over.

The defence of Microsoft and its products relies on re-writing history and ignoring the facts, and the attack on Google is just paranoia

You really need to look at things objectively. Most people just want something that works, Windows XP and up works perfectly fine so there's no need to get all mad at Microsoft. The computers are available from dozens of vendors, they're cheap and you can even use software from 15 years ago. That's windows. If you need a video card or monitor they are dozens of vendors that sell them too. Let me repeat, 98% of people don't have a bad thing to ay about Windows now because it works.

Yes, MS was behaving like a monopoly and they paid the price.

Now Android tablets are taking over.

Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and a few others are very happy about that. The stolen Android has to pay licensee fees.

I know plenty of successful online businesses who have never paid Google a penny. If I look at my own expenditure only a fraction is online, and most of that goes to either sites I go straight to (Amazon, for example) or after sifting through both known brands and multiple web searches to find the best deal (I recently hired a car that way).

Sure you don't but somehow, someone is paying $40 Billion this year.

Sure you don't but somehow, someone is paying $40 Billion this year.

Watch this figure go exponentially up on next earnings call, now that Mr. Cutts is pushing "quality" index update$ once per week. Should not be too hard for them to clear market expectations......by a mile, yet again.

One mean greedy panda they've got running there and it will very soon show in the figures. All from our pockets mind you...

How would Google identify me? They would have to first get my ISP to give them the list of all IP addresses I used the last two years, and then match that to Google's records.

cookies, your google account, its all a game of connect the dots and its not hard at all. They don't need you ISP for anything.