Microsoft Buys Skype For $8.5 Billion

Another breaking news from the tech industry. To keep Google & Facebook away from buying Skype, Microsoft has announced that they have agreed to buy Skype from Silver Lake, the leading firm in the investor group that picked up a majority stake in Skype in 2009 for $8.5 billion.

According to the reports, Ballmer will now head Skype directly. Once the merger is complete, Microsoft plans to add Skype support to its Xbox and Kinect gaming devices and Windows Phone mobile operating system.
Microsoft already has Windows Live Messenger that supports video/voice calls but now with the purchase of Skype, we can be sure that with Skype's presence across the globe, Windows Live messenger users will be able to get their own personal phone numbers across the world.

The telephony infrastructure would make a valuable addition to the Messenger/Lync platform. It could also tie-in well with Exchange 2010, which offers voicemail integration.

Once this happens, eBay would come out stupid because they sold Skype with $1.2 billion loss and now the original owners of Skype are gaining almost $5-6 billion profit. Where was microsoft when eBay sold it for few billions??