Facebook considering $3-4Bn buyout of Skype
mashable.com
mashable.com
I located the problem and fixed it using baksmali/smali. I then opened a ticket on their public Jira server describing the problem, solution, and even attached the patched .apk. Months later they still haven't merged it into Skype proper, even though it's literally a two-line fix. In the meantime loads of people cannot use Skype on their phones.
The fact that a company that is supposed to be worth 1 trillion USD doesn't have the manpower or interest to fix such a simple bug that totally breaks their product for a lot of people should tell us something. From the outside it looks like all the skilled people have left a long time ago, and I wonder if they'll be able to maintain their market position like this.
"Billion"
Luckily you can always count on the internet to point out your typos.
Skype took much too long to even update their Linux version. Sure its functional but I'd like to see it receive some attention like its Windows and Mac brothers.
If Facebook does indeed purchase Skype I'm hoping it means the ability to use Skype within the browser so I can stop whining about its apps.
1) Technology: Skype's core technology is their P2P technology. They have their own clients for PCs and mobiles. Facebook resides in the cloud, and it works from the browser. This is a huge difference on PCs/Macs, but less so on mobiles, where Facebook also has apps.
2) Price: At $3-4Bn Skype would be by far Facebook's biggest acquisition, as all the others have been under $100M. As they don't have the amount of cash that public companies like AAPL, GOOG or MSFT have (at least not yet), it's quite a big effort for them. There need be a lot of synergies to justify paying this kind of money.
3) Culture: Skype is older than Facebook, and has European roots. Facebook has so far made small acquisitions (more like acqhiring), they don't have any experience with integrating a big company like Skype.
4) Business model: Skype is going for the enterprise market (see the appointment of the new CEO last autumn), and selling subscriptions. Facebook is going for consumers, and selling ads.
Overall, I think a better option for Skype would be an IPO, a telco acquisition, or maybe a Google acquisition.
Andreessen did a huge deal to buy Skype.
Andreessen is an investor in Facebook AND on the board.
He sold Qik to Skype for $100M and now he's going to sell Skype to Facebook for billions?
"No conflict, no interest" indeed.
Dave Chappelle had a sketch where he was defending Michael Jackson despite mounting evidence implicating him in child molestation. Chappelle's defense was "but .. he made Thriller!"
But .. he wrote Mosaic!
(IANAL, TINLA etc)
You have a service of 500 MILLION accounts that actually talk to eachother.
The play here is so fucking obvious: the facebook Social technology portal page: It is a smartphone on fucking steroids.
You get voice, an extensive contacts list, all the apps on the platform, updates of actions etc...
There is no way why this is a stupid play on facebooks part.
If this goes through - they will have a phenomenally significant advantage to google. Millions of users that now have every tool they need to communicate. The additional services that facebook shall deploy only further lock in that user base: payments, planning, groups, organizations... eventually it will be about fostering and incubating companies and startups via facebook frameworked group app support.
The next step is the facebook phone... all it has is a data connection - skype all your contacts in-system, and the ancillary apps that they can end up providing through the platform in 5 years will take on apple.
I've personally never used skype, but for 1-1 video chatting, gchat works pretty well. I use it nightly.
Using this setup you can have an instant messenger, video chat and phone calls.
[1] http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/
[3] http://code.google.com/p/redfire/
[4] http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/plugins.jsp (scroll down to SIP Phone Plugin)
It is not p2p but that could be implemented separately AFAIK
I've learned about Skype from my aunt who managed to install it and get it working without phoning me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitsi
has anyone tried it? What do you think? I haven't gotten it to work yet,,,
The most reliable VoIP program I've found is twinkle, but it hasn't been updated in years afaik. I used Ekiga exclusively for SIP and video chat for several months but it was plagued with really annoying bugs, including frequent hard locks and unreliable presence/call functionalities.
I haven't been impressed with any Linux SIP/video chat applications to be honest. Empathy and Pidgin use gstreamer which usually doesn't work very well either. The most reliable video chat experience I've had is Skype, despite their buggy Linux client.
- Open standard
- Supports federation between different servers
- Open source cllients available
- Also integrated into GMail (that's the technology that is used when you do a voice or video call)
- Will be fully integrated into Android starting with version 2.3.4
* Why Facebook will buy Skype
* This is not a bubble
* Facebook buying Skype is the dumbest thing ever
* Skype's two hundred competitors that Google will buy
* That settles it, we're in a bubble
* Why Google/Microsoft/Yahoo/Apple should buy Skype
* How I flipped my VOIP company for $4 billion in funny-moneyTo be more precise, it's $2B in EBITDA, not net profit.
I'd say it's more like likely a 'strategic partnership' than a buy-out. Having said that though, they're both private companies, so it may not as straight forward as a normal 'merger'
•Enhance their messaging platform with support for Voice and Video powered by Skype. Off course Facebook can develop its own Voice and Video infrastructure. Too me it’s a stretch. Instead by buying Skype they get instant access to VoIP/SMS/Video features •Support Voice/Video will boost the messaging platform, which doesn’t seem to have gained much traction •With Skype Acquisition they also get QIK Live streaming capabilities. That’s an added plus •Instant Access to more than 500 million users. The chances of Skype users having Facebook account are high. There might be an overlap •Facebook can really become a global operator providing Voice/SMS/Video/IM communication to all its users. Off course PSTN access will still be short coming, a partnership with one of the operator can offset this shortcoming •A Facebook phone becomes a reality. Most of the operators are moving towards 4G/LTE, it’s a matter of time that all Voice calls will be carried via IP network. With a partnership with one of the access network, Facebook’s ambitious phone becomes a reality. So constant monthly revenue for basic phone service becomes a reality. Voila! •Patronize Innovation by opening up the Skype platform for developers (Telco 2.0 Platform). Something similar to Twilio, Voxeo etc •Who said Facebook is only for Consumer market, with Skype acquisition they can venture into Enterprise market and become a threat to some of the incumbent Video/VoIP provider like Avaya, Cisco etc •According to CDC Straw Poll 75% of the companies will adopt, Video Conferencing by 2012. Skype already supports consumer video conferencing which can be extended /enhanced for enterprise •Voice conferencing is another big Enterprise feature. So armed with these powerful features, facebook can look beyond consumer market •It makes sense to have different revenue stream instead of relying only on advertisements •Everybody wants a piece of Facebooks social graph including operators. T-Mobiles recently launched Bobsled , a one touch calling within facebook. In fact Facebook can do a better job than Third Party service providers.
if facebook has the penetration everyone believes they have, skype would be irrelevant. buy any other media streaming company with an actual decent codec and the rest is commodity.
If logged in to skype meant logged in to facebook I would become a very active facebook user.
I can't gauge the value of that to facebook because it's still not entirely clear how they make money (at least not the kind of money investors are aiming for), but it's possible skype is very valuable. Who I call, how long, what hours, these all tell facebook a lot about me. Possibly more than my facebook account does.
Different people use facebook for different things. Photo sharing, address book, networking, chat, email (sort of), social news, games. Skype can add another big bullet point to that list.
Again, it's hard to say good or bad for facebook's bottom line at this point. If you are going by their current revenue model, you would have to relate everything to demographically segmented pageviews but these kind of numbers assume bigger value than that.
I was mostly questioning how much users (or actual real users that actually uses the site) there are in reality. not in the make believe news lives in.