Today it became known about the conclusion of an agreement according to which Microsoft acquires the largest owner of the IP-telephony service, the company Skype. It is already known that the deal amounted to about 8.5 billion US dollars.
Thus, this acquisition will be one of the largest in history. Microsoft over the past few decades. By the way, the amount of the transaction includes the repayment of all debts Skype.
how Microsoft plans to dispose of the acquisition in the future is not yet clear. Needless to say, the very fact of the acquisition turned out to be a surprise for many (more real contenders seemed Google or Facebook). Only one thing is clear - from now on, support for this service will appear in everything related to Microsoft — Xbox, MS office, Windows phone and other. It is likely that from now on the Skype client will be built into Windows. Also Microsoft declares that support and development of versions for other platforms will continue.
Analysts are still quite cautious in expressing their opinion on the prospects of this deal.