Today Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5Billion and I reached out to Aaron Sloman, our GM of our Microsoft West practice to ask what his take was on this merger.
What was your initial reaction to the Skype purchase?
Seems like a lot of $$$, but it really accelerates the consumer voice strategy to align with the Lync / business strategy, which MSFT is becoming an force in.. We all believe in soft voice systems, Microsoft’s saying they are a player in this now.
How do you think this will help boost the Sharepoint and collaboration offerings?
It’s going to provide soft-phone capabilities beyond the corporate boundary’s where Lync/etc typically stop, eg: customer support, presence.
What use case best fits a Skype integration?
Customer’s on the web contacting businesses for support/sales is a top one from a business perspective, but you have to think of the consumer play more, eg: soft phones in homes/etc.
MS has been clearly heading to the “Clouds”, what is your take on that?
Skype’s a perfect cloud platform, it’s really a virtual PABX. Microsoft’s the most vested in this strategy out of all vendors, they are taking their core revenue streams; Xxchange, Sharepoint, SQL, etc and moving it to the cloud, Skype’s a natural fit, especially for the SMB market.
As with most purchases, this one will be seen in the field but both have some closely aligned goals. What’s your take? How would you use Skype with Sharepoint?
