Cisco Planning To Acquire Skype 148
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.
I welcome this. (Score:3, Informative)
Skype is rather Nasty to deal with if you have problems. If it is urgent there is no Voice support, And the email links to ask for a problem are vague and will lead you to the wrong path, and with horible auto replies that will just make you mad.
While with Cisco sure you will be on hold for 3 hours but at least you can talk to someone and get it resolved.
Re:iPhone by Cisco? (Score:5, Informative)
Skype already had a working implementation on the world's biggest mobile plarform, as symbian application called fring allowed you to essentially tunnel into your skype account and make phone to pc, pc to phone and phone to phone video calls on any symbian mobile phone with front facing camera (which is pretty much any decent nokia made in the last 4 years).
At some point, folks at skype decided that they didn't want to be a source for free video calls over 3g and blocked fring. But to actually need to make a phone when all you need is to allow integration into already existing phones for money... why?
Video calls already worked for mobile phones over skype for a while (and apparently work again over fring itself as it added the functionality recently, but fring still seems to lack PC endpoint application). They could probably set up a small charge for every time you video call a phone with data connection, though I suspect that they have to hurry before one of the small start ups like fring grabs enough of the market and becomes skype of the mobile world.
Re:I welcome this. (Score:2, Informative)
With Cisco, you'll be on hold for 3 hours, until you read off your product serial number. Then they tell you you've reached EOL for the product in question, and offer to sell you an identical product whose only difference is the product number, at a vastly increased price. However, they won't tell you what the price is until you sign an NDA, because the gouge each customer differently.
Re:Probably a good fit (Score:5, Informative)
Somebody is going to make around $3 billion on this, but it isn't going to be eBay, who sold Skype last year for $2 billion, which was less than what they paid for the company when they bought it.
Re:Privacy Concerns? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe not (Score:3, Informative)
This is a rumor from TechCrunch. Maybe there's something to it, maybe not. All the other news items reporting this seem to be quoting the one TechCrunch source. Another news item said "A Source Close to Cisco" said there was nothing to the rumor.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/08/31/cisco-has-not-had-talks-about-acquiring-skype-source-says/ [barrons.com]
Re:iPhone by Cisco? (Score:4, Informative)