Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law - Reich Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg
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Gates approved Microsoft's Skype takeover
MICROSOFT FOUNDER Bill Gates supported the company's decision to buy Skype for more money than sense.
Gates was interviewed on the BBC's Hardtalk programme when he said that he was behind the £5.2bn deal.
"I was a strong proponent at the board level for the deal being done," he said, "I think it's a great, great deal for Skype. I think it's a great deal for Microsoft."
The double great weighting applied to Skype suggests that Gates, like the rest of us, thinks that it is that firm that did the best out of the deal.
Skype is a voice over internet protocol (VoIP), video and chat application that, although it is widely used, isn't particularly profitable. Still, that is likely to change once Microsoft works out how to wring cash out of it.
"The idea of video conferencing is going to get so much better than it is today. Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue," added Gates. "It'll be fascinating to see how the brilliant ideas out of Microsoft research, coming together with Skype, what they can make of that." µ
Tags: Microsoft
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"Brilliant ideas out of M$ research"?
So we can look forward to future versions of Skype riddled with security holes, released annually as paid upgrades? And the user interface will be Microsoft Bob? And the whole thing will only work on Internet Explorer 11, which only runs on Windows 8?
I cant wait to see it either, but for probably[1] different reasons.
[1] I still dont *entirely* rule out the possibility that billg is the greatest troll of all time.