Saturday, October 15, 2011

Microsoft Gobbles Up Yet Another Company

Skype BSOD



Skypersoft is a reality—Microsoft has completed its $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, officially making the deal Microsoft's largest takeover to date.

The tech giant's biggest prior acquisition was its $6 billion deal for aQuantive, a firm nobody had ever heard of (or since), in 2007.

The boards of directors of Microsoft and Skype greedily approved the all-cash acquisition. So did the Federal Trade Commission as well as other international antibusiness agencies.

"Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a statement. "We look forward to abusing that hard-earned trust and forcing the Skype team to create new ways for people to be disconnected at random intervals from family, friends, clients and colleagues—anytime, anywhere."

Skype CEO Tony Bates sold his soul to become president of a new Skype division at Microsoft, lorded over directly by Ballmer. While the delivery date for his soul was left open in the contract, Bates' tenure is expected to last as long as three years before his innate desire to offer customers a user-friendly and functional product finally clashes with Microsoft's long-held strategy of simply making money, regardless of the actual quality of any of their products.

"The Skype division will continue to offer its current products to millions of users globally," Microsoft said. "Longer term, Skype will also be integrated across Microsoft's bloated array of poorly-supported products to broaden Microsoft's reach and accelerate its growth as a fundamental barrier to the way people try, but ultimately fail, to work and communicate online. Skype's global workforce will be downsized and outsourced to India, or maybe China. Whatever's cheaper, y'know?"

Bates said the subsummation of Skype by Microsoft "will be able to accelerate Microsoft's goal to annoy and frustrate one billion users daily."

Skype's software is used by about 170 million people each month on PCs, tablets, smartphones, and even home TVs, enabling users to talk by either voice or video over the web for free, though for a fee calls can be placed to landlines and cellphones. "It won't be long before our beloved 'Blue Screen of Death' can be seen on every screen, every device, everywhere, at any time," Ballmer said. "With Steve [Jobs] out of the way now, these are indeed exciting times."



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