The Hitch

The BBC’s Tim Weber on Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype:

The hitch: Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer will have to work hard to integrate Skype, to ensure the voice/video-over-the-internet company is not strangled by his firm’s notorious bureaucracy.

I remember when Skype was bought by eBay: I thought “there goes a great service”, but I’m still using Skype today — so I’m willing to give Microsoft a chance. But I’ve just recently had to use Hotmail, and I’m really hoping none of those UI “innovations” get hammered onto my Mac Skype client.

This is the way acquisitions work:

  1. Business A builds something cool/useful/profitable
  2. Business B sees value in business A’s service
  3. Business B buys business A

Normally this is great but sometimes that something cool/useful/profitable is a product of some unique circumstances at business A, which circumstances promptly cease to exist when business A is taken over (strangled?) by business B. Then the takeover is like picking a beautiful flower and watching it die: once you’ve got what you want, you loose it.

In all honesty, I can’t see Microsoft doing anything more with Skype than eBay did (i.e., nothing). But I’m willing to lower my standards: I’ll be happy as long as a Bing search bar doesn’t pop up every time I make a Skype call to one of my clients.