So Microsoft is to become the new owner of Skype! This is big news for us that run our business and personal communications on the platform. I suspect we were all relieved when eBay finally recognized the inevitable and sold a majority stake to investors who have largely trodden water with the product while they figured out how to realize on their investment. So is the Microsoft acquisition good or bad news?
Good News? Microsoft will probably be a good custodian because they are primarily concerned with leveraging the capability to strengthen their social networking products, and less interested in direct revenue return. So hopefully impact on our free communications network will be minimized. Similarly Microsoft will be keen to integrate Skype with social network products, telecom and video networks and gaming. These will probably be more important than integration with legacy integration with Windows.
Bad News? Where I would like to see Microsoft go with Skype is integration of various communications channels. The (industry analyst) party line is that communications futures are likely to center around Facebook – and I will freely admit I see this as a nightmare. What I would like to see is much more integration between Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, Skype, Twitter etc. This could be an amazing way for Microsoft to move beyond it’s Office legacy environment, and to establish a world class, multi channel communications system. But sadly Microsoft has two major limitations that I expect will come into play:
1) Microsoft does proprietary and competitive. Expect them to strengthen Hotmail and other Microsoft specific links in order to compete more aggressively with Gmail. Skype may become more proprietary and less open. Will Skype remain on the iPhone?
2) Even within their own world, Microsoft doesn’t do cross product integration. This is because of the way that Microsoft is organized. I recall years ago asking Bill Gates the question “why didn’t MS formally componentize its portfolio?” His answer told me all I needed to know – he doesn’t believe in portfolio level (enterprise) architecture, and optimizes at the product group. And I am not sure MS has changed. So IMHO the likely outcome is that Microsoft will move Skype into video and gaming and in that way make some revenue. But they will miss the strategic opportunity to go head to head with Google and Facebook and at the same time rejuvenate it’s legacy portfolio.
Still it will be interesting to watch.
