Microsoft Looks to Purchase Skype for $8 Billion
Microsoft is close to completing a deal to purchase internet phone giant Skype Technologies for close to $8 billion. The deal should be announced later today if negotiations go as planned. This is a very interesting move by Microsoft who have been overtaken recently by Apple Computers in market share mainly due to strong iPad tablet sales. Microsoft executives are looking for Skype to play a role in boosting sales of their Office suite and their mobile-phone efforts.
The deal shows how far Skype has come since it was launched in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, two men who had created a file-sharing technology called Kazaa that became widely associated with music piracy. When eBay Inc. purchased the company in 2005 for $2.6 billion in cash and stock, Skype was regarded as something of an experiment in which eBay’s buyers and sellers would use the service to communicate about potential transactions.
Comments are closed.