Microsoft to buy Skype for $7-8 billion?
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft could announce a deal to buy Skype for $7-8 billion as soon as tomorrow! Skype, based in Luxembourg, provides a software-based communications service that allows people to make free voice and video calls over the Internet to other Skype users with almost any Internet-connected device. The VoIP service allows folks to make and receive calls to and from regular telephone numbers through a paid service. The Journal reported that negotiations were ongoing and could still fall apart.
I don’t know about you, but I feel about the same way that I did when I heard about Microsoft acquiring Bungie… bummed! (Fortunately, today Bungie is a private company!) Skype has been around since 2003 and averages 124 million connected users each month.
Skype had filed plans in August of 2010 for an initial public offering that was expected to raise $1 billion. After Skype appointed former Cisco Systems executive Tony Bates as its new CEO in October of 2010, those plans were delayed.
“Take the money and run?” 
Personally, I hope that the deal falls apart, but it looks as though the real damage may have been done last October.
-Bill at
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