In a story clearly orchestrated by Microsoft and Skype PR, and what has really is the first deep dive look at Skype by a major publication since their offical takeover last October by Microsoft, the New York Times' Nick Wingfield examines what's up with the market leading online real-time communications service.
Wingfield did a very good job, keeping the story balanced, not taking all the Skyperosoft party line, especially by pointing out the dislike from mobile operators to have Skype "in the family" on Windows Mobile phones. The other key point that came out is how hard Microsoft is working to get Skype integreated into Windows 8. This means to me Skype has to be very, very slick on the Windows tablets most of all, and be integrated into Lync. Right now, Lync, the Microsoft business communicator and Skype don't interoperate, nor does Skype interoperate by the not mentioned Windows Messenger--a key omission, and one that likely means something is up in that direction that no one wants anyone to know YET.
The main purpose of this story coming out now, is that in six weeks or so Microsoft holds their massive customer conference in Toronto in early July, and Skype clearly will be on the minds of enterprise customers and mobile operators, as Microsoft has been pretty quiet up until now, by design, emphasizing through their sales folks that Skype is a separate company, a point reiterated in the Wingfield story.
I'm not convinced and figure its a slow roll, but by 2015 Skype and Microsoft will be one integrated entity with Skype buncled into every copy of Office, fully interoperable with every Microsoft real time communications service, like LiveMeeting, and OCS, and most of all, linking up with Messenger and Lync. It's all too logical, and to likely to have to happen.
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