It's official: Microsoft closes Skype deal

[peteyt]

Hmm, hard to say what will change. I presume Skype will be the adult version of video chatting, like business conferences or meetings. Windows Live has slowly been in decline over the past few years, so any improvements will only be to the service rather than the reputation The only competition to Microsoft now is Yahoo! Messenger and, possibly, Facebook chat assuming Fb Chat cannot be accessed through WLM/Skype.

WLM usage has declined and while this probably won't happen, Microsoft would maybe benefit from taking WLM and Skype and merging them into one product - It would then be a lot easier to use - It annoys me if I've got Skype running and WLM for different users. Pulling them together into one application would make life easier.

[xxMATTGxx]

Something else important Microsoft really should do is create a push messaging service for Windows Phone. It would be ideal if they just designed push messaging integrated into Windows Phone which danced with both Skype and MSN, but I think I'll have to dare to dream here.

Microsoft do like to do tight integrating with Windows Phone and two examples of that is facebook and twitter which is built into the people hub and messaging hub. Not sure if they will do that with Skype in the future, I do expect an application before anything before the year is out though. Then maybe in a future update to the OS they could integreate it further?

WLM usage has declined and while this probably won't happen, Microsoft would maybe benefit from taking WLM and Skype and merging them into one product - It would then be a lot easier to use - It annoys me if I've got Skype running and WLM for different users. Pulling them together into one application would make life easier.

I can't find stats but usage may of declined by ourselves on the forum but Windows Live is near enough a worldwide service and millions of people have used Windows Live Messenger. I do wonder how many people still use it and I;m sure it's still a decent amount.

[peteyt]

Microsoft do like to do tight integrating with Windows Phone and two examples of that is facebook and twitter which is built into the people hub and messaging hub. Not sure if they will do that with Skype in the future, I do expect an application before anything before the year is out though. Then maybe in a future update to the OS they could integreate it further?



I can't find stats but usage may of declined by ourselves on the forum but Windows Live is near enough a worldwide service and millions of people have used Windows Live Messenger. I do wonder how many people still use it and I;m sure it's still a decent amount.

I think though if they combined MSN with Skype and somehow made it one system - not too sure how it would work, but if they could allow the users on msn to keep their contact list, email address etc then they'd have all the users on skype and all the users on msn together.