マイクロソフトがスカイプを買収した理由

Why Microsoft bought Skype | I, Cringely

マイクロソフトがスカイプを買収した理由：Why Microsoft bought Skype – @cringely | Long Tail World

マイクロソフトはグーグルにスカイプを買われたくないから、スカイプを買った。

Microsoft bought Skype to keep Google from buying Skype.

そう、アップルの名は敢えて出していない。市場で一番目障りな野郎という意味ではアップルの右に並ぶものはないが、あそこは他とだいぶ違う道を進んでいるので、アップルが次のマイクロソフトになることはない。アップルは次の何者でもない。なぜならアップルが目指す役目は、ことごとくマイクロソフトの想像の裏をかき超越することだから。グーグルは次のマイクロソフトだ。だからバルマーもグーグルのことは直接の脅威と見る—この小僧をなんとかすればなんとかなると望みを繋いでいるのだ。

Notice I didn’t mention Apple. In terms of being the baddest MoFo in the market Apple has no peer, but Apple is following its own very different course. Apple isn’t the next Microsoft, you see. Apple is not the next anything because the role it aspires to transcends anything imaginable by Microsoft, ever. Google is the next Microsoft, so Google is seen by Ballmer as the immediate threat — the one he has a hope in hell of actually doing something about.

Cringely on Microsoft’s Purchase of Skype | Daring Fireball

This is Cringely at his best. I think he’s nailed something true: Ballmer doesn’t now and never has understood Apple. He doesn’t understand what Apple does, what it aspires to, or what consumers see that’s so appealing about Apple’s products. But he understands Google, including the ways that Google’s products threaten Microsoft’s.

Remember when Ballmer made a fool of himself in 2007 by laughing about the iPhone’s prospects? That’s because he didn’t get it. It wasn’t just bluster or spin — I think he truly believed that “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” I don’t recall him ever exhibiting a similar blind spot regarding Google. That’s not to say he knows what to do about Google, just that he at least understands it.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover | BBC News