But why buy Skype to achieve all this? After all, had the start-upgone public, it would no doubt have been keen to work withMicrosoft on these and other offerings to drum up revenue. Perhapsthe answer is that Microsoft desperately wants to be seen as aplace that is home to cool consumer technologies and hopes thatowning Skype outright will give it more credibility as a hive ofedgy innovation. The snag is that the firm has fallen so far behindthe likes of Google and Apple in the consumer arena that its fallfrom grace there may well be irrevocable.
The corporate market may be more promising. Microsoft has a bigfootprint here thanks to its Windows and Office products. And itsLync service, which combines various different communications toolssuch as video chat, instant messaging and web conferencing in asingle package to spur collaboration inside companies, has provedvery popular. Splicing Skype onto it could allow it to compete evenmore effectively with offerings from rivals such as Cisco.
微軟也可能通過將Skype與其Xbox360 遊戲機和Kinect體感裝置連接，使玩家能在又一次殺死對手的虛擬人物後看到對手臉上的憤怒表情。同時將Skype整合進其WindowsPhone7係統的手機當中也能更好地應對來自競爭對手的視頻服務，而微軟的同盟Nokia的手機也將會采用此操作係統。