MS to buy Skype
Alan Browne
The rumor is true:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-to-buy-skype-for-8-5-billion/?ref=business
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3f7djje
--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.
Mr. Strat
<alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> The rumor is true:
>
>
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-to-buy-skype-for-8-5-billion/?
> ref=business
>
> or
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/3f7djje
It will fit in well with the rest of their security holes. What
innovators they are!
JF Mezei
Skype from Microsoft ?
Or will a new competitor to skype emerge once Microsoft has begun to
ruin the old one ?
Jeffrey Goldberg
>
> The rumor is true:
Damn. Now my phone will have to run ActiveX crap sent to it from a
remote source.
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
Paul Fuchs
Apparently a fully in place competitor now exists. Has anyone taken the
truphone app around the block?
http://www.truphone.com/en-US/Products/Tru-App/Features-checker/Tru-App-
for-Desktop/
--
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
bi...@mix.com
> Damn. Now my phone will have to run ActiveX crap sent to it from a
> remote source.
Save your old versions of Skpye (was good advice before this, heh).
Maybe (I know, that's a rather large maybe) they will still work...
Billy Y..
--
sub #'9+1 ,r0 ; convert ascii byte
add #9.+1 ,r0 ; to an integer
bcc 20$ ; not a number
Alan Browne
> Any chance the governments/competition bureaus would block this to save
> Skype from Microsoft ?
No real basis. MS is not in that business segment so they are not
eliminating competition, just acquiring an asset.
The Yahoo acquisition had tons of anti-trust issues to resolve had it
proceeded.
My only fear with this is that they will screw up a good (for me) thing.
Davoud
> The rumor is true:
I hope they don't screw up the neighborhood. I don't care who owns
Skype really, and I'm not a Microsoft basher like some here, but MS has
a has a history of screwing up its acquisitions. The pioneering pro
photo cataloguer/viewer iView Media Pro, e.g.
Skype would have been a natural for Apple, whose iChat does not work as
well as Skype, and, to the best of my knowledge (I know many Mac users,
and they use Skype, not iChat) is not widely used. It will be if
Microsoft chooses to incorporate unneeded proprietary stuff and makes
Skype incompatible with Macs, however.
Davoud
--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.
usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm
Nitefall
> The rumor is true:
>
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-to-buy-skype-for-8-5-billion/?ref=business
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3f7djje
The
>
new Skype Logo Sky.net. Love it.
http://img.imgur.com/yvtdc.png
Nitefall
> I hope they don't screw up the neighborhood. I don't care who owns
> Skype really, and I'm not a Microsoft basher like some here, but MS has
> a has a history of screwing up its acquisitions. The pioneering pro
> photo cataloguer/viewer iView Media Pro, e.g.
>
> Skype would have been a natural for Apple, whose iChat does not work as
> well as Skype, and, to the best of my knowledge (I know many Mac users,
> and they use Skype, not iChat) is not widely used. It will be if
> Microsoft chooses to incorporate unneeded proprietary stuff and makes
> Skype incompatible with Macs, however.
>
> Davoud
I miss iView Media Pro... That was an incredible application.
Jamie Kahn Genet
> The rumor is true:
>
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-to-buy-skype-for-8-5-bill
> ion/?ref=business
>
> or
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/3f7djje
It's hard to know whether this will help Skype's abomination of a UI in
v5, or not (it is MS after all)...
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Paul Sture
JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Any chance the governments/competition bureaus would block this to save
> Skype from Microsoft ?
Not when as rumour has it, MS will open it up for intelligence agency
"wiretaps".
--
Paul Sture
Alan Browne
> Alan Browne:
>> The rumor is true:
>
> I hope they don't screw up the neighborhood. I don't care who owns
> Skype really, and I'm not a Microsoft basher like some here, but MS has
> a has a history of screwing up its acquisitions. The pioneering pro
> photo cataloguer/viewer iView Media Pro, e.g.
>
> Skype would have been a natural for Apple, whose iChat does not work as
> well as Skype, and, to the best of my knowledge (I know many Mac users,
> and they use Skype, not iChat) is not widely used. It will be if
> Microsoft chooses to incorporate unneeded proprietary stuff and makes
> Skype incompatible with Macs, however.
MS do not have a policy of deliberately blocking Mac users - au
contraire, the early days of Apple depended in part on MS; the MS Office
suites and other packages are available for the Mac. Flip side there is
nothing about Exchange (a major MS platform) that prevents Macs from
accessing it (Indeed the most seamless interface to Exchange I've seen
is from the iPhone).
I wouldn't be surprised if Silverlight is blown down with Skype and that
would really peeve me. OTOH, HTML5 may be taking care of that in any case.
What MS really get of course is the established network of users.
nospam
<alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> MS do not have a policy of deliberately blocking Mac users - au
> contraire, the early days of Apple depended in part on MS; the MS Office
> suites and other packages are available for the Mac. Flip side there is
> nothing about Exchange (a major MS platform) that prevents Macs from
> accessing it (Indeed the most seamless interface to Exchange I've seen
> is from the iPhone).
tell that to those who bought zunes, or who want to write windows phone
7 software. there's actually quite a bit of stuff microsoft does where
they intentionally skip macs.
> I wouldn't be surprised if Silverlight is blown down with Skype and that
> would really peeve me. OTOH, HTML5 may be taking care of that in any case.
>
> What MS really get of course is the established network of users.
what they're getting is the ability to make a windows phone 7 handset
that integrates skype directly.
Davoud
<nel...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 11 May 2011 00:36:43 -0400, wrote
> (in article <2011051021364391741-nitefall@komkastnet>):
Davoud:
> >> ...but MS has
> >> a has a history of screwing up its acquisitions. The pioneering pro
> >> photo cataloguer/viewer iView Media Pro, e.g.
Nitefall:
> > I miss iView Media Pro... That was an incredible application.
Nelson:
> Why are you missing it? It still works fine for me in 10.6.7.
Yes, it still works, but after MS killed it it fell generations behind
Aperture and Lightroom in features and usability. I've got serious
needs and I need serious, supported software.
Davoud
> > Any chance the governments/competition bureaus would block this to save
> > Skype from Microsoft ?
Paul Sture:
> Not when as rumour has it, MS will open it up for intelligence agency
> "wiretaps".
Skype conversations weren't already open to interception? I think they
were.
Alan Browne
> In article<PKKdnZNBPfpUF1fQ...@giganews.com>, Alan Browne
> <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> MS do not have a policy of deliberately blocking Mac users - au
>> contraire, the early days of Apple depended in part on MS; the MS Office
>> suites and other packages are available for the Mac. Flip side there is
>> nothing about Exchange (a major MS platform) that prevents Macs from
>> accessing it (Indeed the most seamless interface to Exchange I've seen
>> is from the iPhone).
>
> tell that to those who bought zunes, or who want to write windows phone
> 7 software. there's actually quite a bit of stuff microsoft does where
> they intentionally skip macs.
A piffle. Where it counts (above) MS have been there.
Too few people bought Zune to matter and I sincerely doubt that many Mac
owners aimed themselves at the Zune any more than MS aimed the Zune at
the Mac population. That is two groups that really had no aspirations
for the other in that market.
>
>> I wouldn't be surprised if Silverlight is blown down with Skype and that
>> would really peeve me. OTOH, HTML5 may be taking care of that in any case.
>>
>> What MS really get of course is the established network of users.
>
> what they're getting is the ability to make a windows phone 7 handset
> that integrates skype directly.
The established network of users is the valuable part - that's what you
market to.
Skype was already in queue for the windows handset, though later this
year. (I'm surprised it isn't already there...).
Alan Browne
Hmmm and Arnold and Maria have separated.
There may be more to this than we think...
I suppose the saving grace is that there is no way MS crapware could be
bug free enough to evolve the machines...
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
> Skype conversations weren't already open to interception? I think they
> were.
Skype conversations were encrypted. No actual specification of the encryption
used, so one one can really tell how secure they are. More importantly,
no one knows what keys were used and if there were any "backdoors".
Skype calls were advertised as peer to peer, with no central servers
involved, but it has become known that they used "supernodes" to transfer
the call data.
Since it is a closed protocol, no one has any idea if a call goes through a
supernode or not, and what happens to it if it does. One also can not tell if
a monitoring node gets a copy of all your data or not.
My GUESS is that normal calls are not intercepted, but may be occasionally
monitored while if you were to open a user "binladellives" or "deathtoamerica",
etc it would be. :-)
Of course, once a call enters the PSTN or the VoIP equivalent of it, there is
no encryption at all.
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Occam's Razor does not apply to electronics. If something won't turn on, it's
not likely to be the power switch.
Davoud
> Of course, once a call enters the PSTN or the VoIP equivalent of it, there is
> no encryption at all.
At some point the encryption ends, to be sure. But multiplexed wireless
communications (various digital schemes, FDM, others) are
bulk-encrypted in major American cities, forcing a would be enemy to
gain physical access to an exchange or a wire. Not as easy as it
sounds. The USG, with appropriate warrants for U.S. citizens, can tap
at the exchange, of course. The USG does not need a warrant to
intercept communications between two foreigners.
Nitefall
>>
>> I miss iView Media Pro... That was an incredible application.
>>
>
> Why are you missing it? It still works fine for me in 10.6.7.
I moved on soon aftwr MS bought it. I suppose I could go back.
Jolly Roger
Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> The rumor is true:
*yawn*
Some has-been dinosaur company buys some has-been dinosaur company.
Ho-hum... What's for lunch today?
*stretch*
--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
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filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.
JR
Wes Groleau
> Or will a new competitor to skype emerge once Microsoft has begun to
> ruin the old one ?
Google Voice ? I never tried it.
I did try several of Skype's competitors when it was new and not
yet as popular. Was not impressed with any of them. In fact,
wasn't super impressed with Skype back then either, but it was
the best I had tried.
--
Wes Groleau
There are two types of people in the world …
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157
Davoud
> > Or will a new competitor to skype emerge once Microsoft has begun to
> > ruin the old one ?
Wes Groleau:
> Google Voice ? I never tried it.
>
> I did try several of Skype's competitors when it was new and not
> yet as popular. Was not impressed with any of them. In fact,
> wasn't super impressed with Skype back then either, but it was
> the best I had tried.
Yes, there are still competitors, but none can compare to Skype,
particularly for international calls. Skype presents good video in
calls to Third World locations that have broadband that is shaky at
best. I do a bit of contract work in the U.S. for a Scottish logistics
firm that does most of its business in Africa. Skype saves the firm a
great deal of money and provides excellent, reliable communications.
Google voice? Okay, but apparently not intended to be a Skype
replacement and much more complex than Skype. iChat is third-rate
compared to Skype (poor quality video even between very fast FIOS sites
a few miles apart, while Skype looks like HD video by comparison). Even
if iChat worked it could not be a player in international business.
It's amazing, and a bit frustrating for this Machead, that Apple missed
this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy Skype.
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
> Google Voice ? I never tried it.
Google Voice is not the same as SKYPE. It's a call forwarding service.
You need to sign up from a US IP address. Then you can open an account,
pick a number and setup forwarding numbers. All of the numbers forwarded
to must be in the US and you must be able to answer them and enter a
random 2 digit code on a tonepad.
Then when your google voice number is called, it will forward the call as
you have set it up, take messages, screen calls, etc.
Outgoing calls are done by calling you, and when you answer, calling the
number you asked to call. It works via the web interface, and there may be
other clients. At one time there was an experimental Asterisk client, I
don't know if it still exists or not.
The service is (until the end of 2011) free for both incoming and calls
out to US numbers. International calls are "cheap".
Since it its several layers of VoIP and or phone service it may not work
as well as you like.
For those that are not in the US, can use search engines and are willing to
experiment, I offer the following keywords. Sip2sip.info, IPKall.com and
anonymous US web proxy.
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
> Yes, there are still competitors, but none can compare to Skype,
> particularly for international calls. Skype presents good video in
> calls to Third World locations that have broadband that is shaky at
> best. I do a bit of contract work in the U.S. for a Scottish logistics
> firm that does most of its business in Africa. Skype saves the firm a
> great deal of money and provides excellent, reliable communications.
I think that describes exactly why Apple did not (and would not) buy Skype.
Skype has always been the low end of the scale in resource requirments, as
in hardware, bandwidth and ability to use. Apple targets richer customers.
Skype is not going to sell iPods, iPhones, Macintosh computers and
cellular data contracts, all of which are major sources of income
for Apple. The $11 a month that AT&T paid Apple over a year after
selling an iPhone was about as much profit as Apple made on an iMac or
MacBook they sold to a retailer.
I have no idea what the people your company communicate with use, but a
10 year old PC will work with SKYPE for audio and a 5 year old one for
video. Again, they are not running out to buy the latest device to
use it.
One of the attractive things, if you call it attractive, to face time and
iChat, is that you need to have a Apple product to use them. This gives
users a warm comfortable feeling that not only have they invested wisely
in their expensive toys, but that the poor people in Africa, for whom
they had to eat all of their brocolli*, are not going to have one.
I know that's rude to say that, but it is true.
> It's amazing, and a bit frustrating for this Machead, that Apple missed
> this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy Skype.
I doubt it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Ebay has been trying to
find a buyer for SKYPE, after a few months it was obvious that it was a
mistake. I also do not see that Apple would of bought Skype as long as
Steve was in charge, it just does not fit into his world view.
Geoff.
* Depending upon where and when you grew up, most children of the 1950's,
1960's etc in the US were told to eat their vegetables because children
were starving in China or Africa. It never made any sense to me.
BreadW...@fractious.net
> iChat is third-rate
> compared to Skype (poor quality video even between very fast FIOS sites
> a few miles apart, while Skype looks like HD video by comparison). Even
> if iChat worked it could not be a player in international business.
My experience has been that Skype is much more reliable about
actually establishing and maintaining a video chat, but iChat,
if the chat actually starts and stays going, was higher quality
video.
We've recently been experimenting with Facetime and have found
so far that it's better than either Skype or iChat - easier to
start the chat ("calling" someone rings their device without
them having to have logged into the service) and the quality
and stability of the calls has been excellent. But this has
only been iPad2-to-iPad2 (and once, between an iMac and an iPad2)
> It's amazing, and a bit frustrating for this Machead, that Apple missed
> this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy Skype.
I'm not sure they feel they've lost much on this one. Unless
Skype would sell more Macs (or iOS devices), what's in it for
them? And how would Skype sell more Macs and iPhones?
--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
Davoud
> > iChat is third-rate
> > compared to Skype (poor quality video even between very fast FIOS sites
> > a few miles apart, while Skype looks like HD video by comparison). Even
> > if iChat worked it could not be a player in international business.
BreadWithSpam:
> My experience has been that Skype is much more reliable about
> actually establishing and maintaining a video chat, but iChat,
> if the chat actually starts and stays going, was higher quality
> video.
I'm sure you're right, but I think that "if the chat actually starts
and stays going" would not be acceptable for the majority of Skype
users.
It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
BreadW...@fractious.net
> BreadWithSpam:
>> My experience has been that Skype is much more reliable about
>> actually establishing and maintaining a video chat, but iChat,
>> if the chat actually starts and stays going, was higher quality
>> video.
>
> I'm sure you're right, but I think that "if the chat actually starts
> and stays going" would not be acceptable for the majority of Skype
> users.
When both ends are on macs with decent internet connections, my
experience is that iChat does start and work fine almost every
time.
> It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
And *this* is the main reason I end up using skype - the person
at the other end is, as often as not, on Windows.
Wes Groleau
> * Depending upon where and when you grew up, most children of the 1950's,
> 1960's etc in the US were told to eat their vegetables because children
> were starving in China or Africa. It never made any sense to me.
Allan Sherman: "So the people in Africa still starved, and I got fat."
nospam
<BreadW...@fractious.net> wrote:
> > It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
>
> And *this* is the main reason I end up using skype - the person
> at the other end is, as often as not, on Windows.
ichat connects with windows users who use aim.
D.F. Manno
wrote:
> The USG, with appropriate warrants for U.S. citizens, can tap
> at the exchange, of course.
How naive you are. They haven't bothered with warrants since the
"Patriot Act."
--
D.F. Manno
dfm...@mail.com
Davoud
> > > It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
BreadWithSpam:
> > And *this* is the main reason I end up using skype - the person
> > at the other end is, as often as not, on Windows.
nospam:
> ichat connects with windows users who use aim.
That's nice, but Windows users don't use AIM. They use Skype.
Alan Browne
I skype with my son (iMac to MBP) simply because we both also Skype with
users on Windows. No sense in using two different systems.
We both have Skype on our iPhones as well.
BreadW...@fractious.net
> In article <yob1v02...@panix2.panix.com>, BreadW...@fractious.net
> wrote:
>
>> > It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
>>
>> And *this* is the main reason I end up using skype - the person
>> at the other end is, as often as not, on Windows.
>
> So if you use iChat and they use the AIM client, what's the problem?
As Davoud mentioned, pretty much none of them use AIM. (And for
good reason - it is, or at least was last time I looked at it
a few years ago, horrible)
Jamie Kahn Genet
> Michelle Steiner <mich...@michelle.org> writes:
>
> > In article <yob1v02...@panix2.panix.com>, BreadW...@fractious.net
> > wrote:
> >
> >> > It's moot, though, because the great majority are using Windows.
> >>
> >> And *this* is the main reason I end up using skype - the person
> >> at the other end is, as often as not, on Windows.
> >
> > So if you use iChat and they use the AIM client, what's the problem?
>
> As Davoud mentioned, pretty much none of them use AIM. (And for
> good reason - it is, or at least was last time I looked at it
> a few years ago, horrible)
For me the reasons I use Skype (beyond using it as an extremely cheap
home phone with Skype-In and Skype-Out - I have naked DSL) for VoIP are
it 'Just Works™'.
If the other person doesn't have Skype (which is rare nowadays) 99.99%
of the time they just install and go. With iChat, AIM, etc I often run
into firewall, port forwarding and UPnP/NAT Traversal (frustratingly it
fails to work with some routers... grrrr!) issues.
I'd rather get on with the conversation than troubleshoot people's
routers. Skype lets me do that. Pity the UI is utter crap in v5 (it's
like they tried to make an iPad app for Mac - hello Skype! Hellooooo? I
want to multitask while I chat please! Why are you taking over 3/4 of my
bloody screen?!?). I downgraded to 2.8 and will stick with it till it
breaks or a newer version is given a sane UI.
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Anic297
>
> The rumor is true:
A shame. Why do they buy good software instead of making their own?
I'll leave Skype when it will be a MS product, but if MS made their own
application, I could still use Skype. Also, if they were to make their
own, we could have some choices in the program we use (instead of a
single one).
Davoud
> ...
> I'll leave Skype when it will be a MS product, but if MS made their own
> application, I could still use Skype.
Really? I'm uncertain of the future of Skype, given MS's record with
purchased products. Let us suppose, however, just for the sake of
argument, that a couple of years hence, Skype is better than ever. You
wouldn't use Skype because it comes from MS?
> Also, if they were to make their
> own, we could have some choices in the program we use (instead of a
> single one).
You already have alternatives to Skype (if you can find others who make
the same choice), but MS developing its own solution presumably would
not add to /your/ choices because you have indicated that you won't use
a Microsoft product.
David
Alan Browne
Companies can't grow as quickly through development as they can through
acquisition. Apple does it. MS does it.
I'd venture that Apple's strategy leans to acquiring technologies in the
bud whereas MS acquire established co's with proven platforms and huge
membership. This is not black and white - mixes each way - but each
weighs to their strategy.
One site notes that MS acquired 5% of Apple at some time in the past.
Not sure if they held on to that ...
Apple, on the other hand divested itself of its small # of MS shares.
Alan Browne
If you minimize it it takes up an itty bitty corner of the screen for
audio chat - or video chat can be reduced in size.