Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So FaceTime is still an open platform if anybody actually decides to port it to other OS's... Just saying...

Somebody would have already ported Facetime to other platforms if it were an open standard. Apple hasn't published any specs for anyone to do so nor submitted them to any standards bodies, so nobody can. Steve said they were going to do this, but it hasn't been a year and they haven't and all the evidence is that Apple never will at this point (just as the iOS version of Webkit appears to no longer be open source as the code isn't getting published any more…)

Phazer
 
Sure Microsoft has screwed up things, but they also have alot of good going for them:

XBox Live
Microsoft Office
Windows Server
Windows 7
Windows 8 (in development)

So why not Skype? With Windows 8 in development, it would be grand to see Skype a part of the OS as default.

Also with Skype acquired, MS will try to use it to rival facetime. I bet.

The article DID say Microsoft WILL continue to support it on non-MS products. I mean MS does support Apple with applications.
 
I dont now much of biz... so my question:
with that money is not more simple create a skype clon makes a better gui and logo etc... and make a lot advertising? and spend less money?

I understand that a brand have power image but is an app...
 
Microsoft isn't the evil empire anymore people. Time to get over it.

I guess you don't follow the news that carefully. Microsoft is as evil as it ever was, but they are more sophisticated in their deals. Instead of bullying companies to force them to carry their products, they now bully governments and government entities to force them to carry their products. Nothing has changed other than the place where they exert their will.

As for the paranoid set, my favorite thought about the Kinect is why would anyone want to invite a camera and microphone from Microsoft right into their living rooms?

And to further the paranoid concept, Andy Ihnatko just wrote:

Skype users who are both (a) smart and (b) paranoid will now re-read their Skype terms-of-service agreement more carefully: Microsoft just bought a fairly comprehensive database of who knows whom all over the world.
 
This CAN'T be good.
I imagine Microsoft also whats to rebrand Skype with the name "Face Time" (with a space for distinction).​

Don't think the space is needed - I learned on this forum that any combination of generic words can be used by everyone as a brand name ... :eek:

But than: Facetime is/was no success, so no need to use the same name to try to use that name to 'steal' some success - skype is a much better known and successful name.
 
seriously!?

Don't worry, you can Facetime someone who cares ;) You serisouly have to pull your head out of the sand mate, the perception you have of Microsoft is very much 80s/90s, and the crap OS they made back then.... well upto Vista, Xp was good though, the company has matured a hell of a lot. Windows 7 is actually a big jump for m$ and a very good OS. This is a very good purchase for M$, skype is an excellent application, most people I know who own either a PC or mac use it, Facetime is a toy in comparrison.

Apple should had made a bid for it, I will continue using skype on all my macs, its a great program.

I hope that this post was meant to be funny, or it's you who needs to pull your head out of something and it wouldn't be sand :) XP was not good. It took many service packs over it's decade to become... well, I wouldn't call it stable nor reliable.... or virus free or well, maybe more secure as they patched the holes in it that made it swiss cheese. XP was how I found my way to the Macintosh. Win 7 might be the best they've done ever, but it's hardly innovative as everything about it is a copy of other companies innovations that had been around for years.

I think as long as Microsoft runs under the leadership of Ballmer, they're screwed. They've continued excellence in their worse financial performance as company under his reign and why he's still in his job is beyond me.

Ebay was wise to dump Skype as it's done nothing but lose money. You don't pay $8.5 billion dollars for a company that's probably lost that amount or more since it's inception. Calling Facetime a toy is just iggnornat. It's more than a toy... when you pair it with iChat it matches the feature set of Skype fairly closely. Apple just never put many resources behind it because while "everyone you know" might use Skype, reality is use of messaging products has plummeted year after year as people prefer text messaging. Video chat has never caught on with the masses and is a novelty.

Skype's biggest draw is for people trying to save money on expensive phone calls. Microsoft offers similar services now that people don't use, and integrating it with Outlook and office is silly. That doesn't mix well with their other collaborative offerings like Live Meetings (that have never worked well IMO. Watching someone give a power point that's stalled out on your end is not a good time.) Every time Microsoft attempts these things, they do it with no real plan of execution (Danger phones anyone? The Kin?) and end up ditching it. If anything, they'll just try to tie you into their own Live services with it. This money would be better spent improving what they've got and marketing it better.

Really, why buy a company that makes no money to integrate with your services that lose money? Two losers rarely make a winner. I'm glad I do not own stock in Microsoft because I'd be livid with this news.

And the Skype people surely were happy to sell! When you lose money consecutively there's this thing you end up in.... I think it's called bankruptcy. Now if I owned stock in Skype, I'd be a happy SOB.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)



Because Apple would turn it into something everybody loves and wants to use and Microsoft will turn it into something everybody hates but has no choice whether to use.

No, Apple would buy it, kill it, and then bring it back as a rebranded feature in a future version of OS X or iOS and call it magical and revolutionary :p
 
This is good for competition

I'm sorry folks, but Microsoft is competition. You all despise Microsoft, but Apple would not be where it is without them. Apple will never, EVER be as business-oriented as Microsoft. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. If businesses replaced computers as often as personal computers are, Microsoft would be eating any competition alive. Both companies have very successful business plans. Most people that refuse to look at both companies have no business sense anyway...
 
I'm sorry folks, but Microsoft is competition. You all despise Microsoft, but Apple would not be where it is without them. Apple will never, EVER be as business-oriented as Microsoft. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. If businesses replaced computers as often as personal computers are, Microsoft would be eating any competition alive. Both companies have very successful business plans. Most people that refuse to look at both companies have no business sense anyway...

And everyone forgets that Microsoft bought $150 million of Apple stock back in the 90's when they were in financial trouble.
 
No, Apple would buy it, kill it, and then bring it back as a rebranded feature in a future version of OS X or iOS and call it magical and revolutionary :p

and that is why I hate it when Apple buys a company that offered produces across multiple platefroms. They kill it bloat it up and then limit it only to Apple products.

Of the company that went after skype I think MS was the best one to buy it up. Facebook I would not want to have it. Google and MS would be the top 2 I would want to have it and I think MS could do better things with it in the long run.
 
Don't tell me, it was on Ebay, and there was a stupid bidding war in the last 30 seconds?

Isn't that 2-2.5x the value?
 
XP was not good. It took many service packs over it's decade to become... well, I wouldn't call it stable nor reliable.... or virus free or well, maybe more secure as they patched the holes in it that made it swiss cheese. XP was how I found my way to the Macintosh. Win 7 might be the best they've done ever, but it's hardly innovative as everything about it is a copy of other companies innovations that had been around for years.

For it's time, XP was a good OS. It had holes & flaws like every other OS but as long as you had decent anti-virus protection it was fine. XP only had 2 major Service Packs (SP3 offered nothing much new, mainly performance improvements). XP was excellent for home & business users.

Windows 7 offers a lot more than it's predecessors but it didn't need to be overly innovative because what it does offer makes it easily the best OS to date. It's fast, secure, user friendly plus it's easy to manage & deploy in the corporate world. It also has 350,000,000+ users and growing. I'd say it's been a success, wouldn't you?
 
Maybe there's to be some Nokia/Microsoft/Skype epic...

Yeah, let's see....

  1. You make Smart Phone OS's.
  2. You now make VOIP services that cut out cell phone providers.
  3. Cell phone providers now "loooove" MS because they are trying to cut them out.
  4. Fail.

Dumb move if you ask me. Skype is a direct competitor to the phone companies and I don't think they will like MS feeding out of both bowls.
 
And everyone forgets that Microsoft bought $150 million of Apple stock back in the 90's when they were in financial trouble.
To stop the lawsuit.

M$ lovers always forget that part. M$ bought off Apple to get them to stop suing over Windows. The financial trouble is what made the sum so paltry. What would it have been if this took place in 2007?
 
And you thought the Skype 5 update for Mac was a step backward... :rolleyes:

The UI was already going backwards, somehow it seems fitting. I guess I'm done using it. If they do like they normally do, they will throttle the file transfer speed down, keep certain key features missing in the mac version, or just drop the mac all together anyway. When you got that kind of pocket change to waste, dropping a platform ain't going to matter to them at all.
 
To stop the lawsuit.

M$ lovers always forget that part. M$ bought off Apple to get them to stop suing over Windows. The financial trouble is what made the sum so paltry. What would it have been if this took place in 2007?

I thought that Apple lost the lawsuit.
 
Don't tell me, it was on Ebay, and there was a stupid bidding war in the last 30 seconds?

Isn't that 2-2.5x the value?

We don't know Microsoft's plans so we don't really know why they are willing to pay that amount. On the surface it is almost $15 per registered user, but it will be far more complex than that and no doubt their strategy involves integration in to existing products and stopping competitors getting the technology and users - only Microsoft can really assess the value that has.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.