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Cisco Planning To Acquire Skype 148

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the can-you-see-me-now dept.
rexjoec writes "Cisco is making a bid for Skype. The deal, if successful, would derail a planned initial public offering from Skype and redraw the battle lines in the lucrative market of video communications." The rumored price is $5B.
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Cisco Planning To Acquire Skype More

Cisco Planning To Acquire Skype

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  • Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wshs (602011) on Thursday September 02 2010, @12:59PM (#33453190)

    They do this with pretty much every company they buy. Psionic and Riverhead come to mind quickly for me. The only reason they kept the Linksys brand was because they had no competing product at the time.

  • Re:Not sure how I feel (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jgagnon (1663075) on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:00PM (#33453214)

    At least it wasn't Oracle... :p

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bsDaemon (87307) on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:06PM (#33453310)

    I recently bought an E1000 802.11n wifi ap/router, which is ostensibly a Linksys product, but unlike other Linksys products I've used in the past, this one has the Cisco logo on it in a fairly conspicuous manner, and linksys.com now redirects you to home.cisco.com. I don't know if that's an indicator that they might be planning on phasing out the Linksys brand or not though. Probably not. I think the best parallel I can come up with would be the 'Squire' brand of musical instruments, which is produced by Fender but are basically cheap pieces of crap that they don't want to sully their main-line brand name with.

  • Re:I welcome this. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ironhandx (1762146) on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:31PM (#33453782)

    Really? I'm hoping they add built in Skype functionality to their routers. Cordless phones with the router as the base. Shit they could even bundle it. The market potential is HUGE.

  • Consider This..... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Atomm (945911) on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:31PM (#33453794) Homepage

    Cisco has a huge install base for business VoIP. Most of those businesses connect to land lines via traditional T-1 circuits. If Cisco integrated the Skype infrastructure with all those business customers, they could route calls over the Skype network bypassing the Telco's. From what I have seen, the average business long distance rate is 2-3 cents a minute. Cisco could charge 1 cent a minute and still make a fortune because they have such a large base of customers.

    Now, what if they did the same for International calling?

    I think it's going to move Skype away from Consumers and into the Business world where the real money is.

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Idiomatick (976696) on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:37PM (#33453882)
    :( your future includes AOL. I can't subscribe to your beliefs.

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 02 2010, @01:55PM (#33454236)

    American companies are shackled to the fact that they have to make a profit quarter per quarter

    They don't, it's just that the market has convinced itself that they must. What a horribly farcical state of affairs.

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kepesk (1093871) on Thursday September 02 2010, @02:31PM (#33454776) Homepage
    Actually, another part of the reason (and I've seen this first-hand in the monster corporation I work for) is that they want to buy up little companies with good ideas before their competitors do. Sometimes all they do is buy it up and shut it down; they don't want to use the company's assets, they just want to prevent competitors from using those assets.

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by h4rr4r (612664) on Thursday September 02 2010, @02:34PM (#33454824)

    Or here in reality; Mergers and Acquisitions mean big deal closing payouts to C level execs and paying dividends to investors don't.

  • Re:Cisco Planning to Squash Another Competitor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pclminion (145572) on Thursday September 02 2010, @04:47PM (#33456974)

    Plus, American companies are shackled to the fact that they have to make a profit quarter per quarter, or shareholders can sue the company in the ground.

    And I have to make monthly mortgage payments or the bank will take my house away. See me complaining?

    If you don't want to be shackled by shareholders, don't trade your shares publicly. As a public company you are subject to the investing acumen and superstitions of the general public -- you're basically taking a loan from thousands of "John Smiths." And of course these people just want to see profitability in the short term.

    If I came in here bitching about losing my house because I couldn't keep my creditors happy, you'd tell me to grow up, and if I didn't want to be subject to their whims, maybe I should finance my home myself. But when the same thing happens to a corporation you pity the poor little corporation. Weird.

  • Re:Not sure how I feel (Score:3, Insightful)

    by (Score.5, Interestin (865513) on Friday September 03 2010, @01:03AM (#33461604)

    Maybe Skype will actually stop sucking if Cisco buys them.

    Nope, you'll just get Cisco's mega-suckage added to the existing Skype suckage.

    Actually, this whole mess is my fault. Some years ago I bought a nice Linksys router/AP. Shortly afterwards, Cisco adsorbed Linksys, and turned its suckage-ray of doom on them.

    Last week, I bought a Skype phone. Looks like history is about to repeat itself.

Your step will soil many countries.