Poll: Microsoft buying Skype - good or bad

[ERD50]

Didn't Microsoft make a big investment in Apple a decade or so ago? I wonder how that worked out...

Aug 6, 1997. $150M. By some accounts, MSFT shorted an equal amount of AAPL so it was a non-event (other than PR). From what I understand, it was really a pay-off to settle some patent disputes, Jobs spun it so that MSFT supported Office for the Mac for 5 years (a big deal for Apple) and for the PR. MS wanted some relief from anti-trust battles. A win-win at the time.

But if they let it ride, it would have been a good payoff. About a 50 bagger (yes, that is five-zero, fifty bagger) at this point.

-ERD50

 

[studbucket]

Well, I'm not going to try to counter all of this point-by point, but if you look back at your post, there sure are a lot of qualifiers in there. Why should such a powerhouse company require all these disclaimers (but, but ,but... we weren't bad, we were just late; we didn't get enough support; those were 'just' bla, bla problems; It's a business leadership issue, not a technological issue; it was a product buried way down the chain; ___ is pretty nice, but way too bloated and slow; etc , etc.)

And the piece de' resistance of your post (which samclem already covered, I'm just piling on at this point ):

We are talking software here, right? What else is there, other than the overall customer experience? Isn't that just about everything? Let's see, when I buy a software product, I'm focused on: "gee, that sure is a shiny CD there", or " Wudda purdy box they put that CD in", or "gee, that sure is a long serial number they want me to type in"? Or is it " the overall customer experience? If MS isn't focusing on the overall customer experience, and getting it to the customer on time, then the only prayer they have is their monopoly power (which has served them well for decades).

Apologies for having too many qualifiers. I was not attempting to come off as defensive or overly protective. I understand where my employer has failed, and as I mentioned in my post, there's no great reason for the issues.

Regarding the "quality" issue, I guess that's just a semantics issue. When talking about "software quality", I always think of robust and bug-free. You can have a great UX with terrible quality product, and vice-versa. Perhaps this is an error on my part, but it's a line I draw.

Either way, as you and samclem have correctly pointed out, there are issues. While I am not in any way directly related to any of them, or in a position to fix them, I'm doing the best I can to make my product a good one for our customers. I just hope the company get things going in the right direction, because there are boatloads of extremely intelligent people here, and the company can do a lot right, if it's led correctly.

 

[ERD50]

Apologies for having too many qualifiers.

No apology required, and I didn't mean to come on too hard. It was really meant more as an introspective thing - with all those qualifiers, do you really think they can pull it off, or is it just hope?

While I am not in any way directly related to any of them, or in a position to fix them, I'm doing the best I can to make my product a good one for our customers. I just hope the company get things going in the right direction, because there are boatloads of extremely intelligent people here, and the company can do a lot right, if it's led correctly.

That's the case in many mega-corps. Good people trying to do good things, but w/o good management direction it's tough. I also hope that Skype will be handled well by their new owners, but honestly, I'm not as optimistic as you are. Time will tell.

-ERD50

 

[M Paquette]

Didn't Microsoft make a big investment in Apple a decade or so ago? I wonder how that worked out...

They sold too early.

 

[kumquat]

Since I don't use Skype and only use MS products because I'm too lazy to fight with Linux now that I'm retired, my only interest is how it will affect the "evil empire's" bottom line. Will MS get enough of an enhanced revenue stream to make up for an $8.5B purchase? I'm doubtful enough that if I owned MSFT, I'd sell. I'm not [-]stupid[/-] [-]daring[/-] negative enough to go short.

 

[Dreamer]

I hope that things stay the same, since we use it to stay in contact with DD's family, especially our granddaughter. They are in CA and we are in WV.

 

[studbucket]

A nice "infographic" that the SeattlePI blog posted, trying to quickly show the ins and outs of this move:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/files/2011/05/skypegraphic.jpg

I'd post the actual picture, but it's too huge to do that.