Former CEO and Chairman of Microsoft Bill Gates, said he advocated the Skype takeover last week. Although Gates has handed power down to Steve Ballmer, current CEO of Microsoft, he still obviously plays an important role in decision making at Microsoft.
News broke last Tuesday about Microsoft officially acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. Both Google and Facebook made bids for the Internet phone software company, but according to reports, none of the bids were competitive enough for Skype to consider.
According to the BBC, Gates influenced many of Microsoft"s chairman to acquire Skype. Gates was quoted in saying,
"I was a strong proponent at the board level for the deal being done."
It"s still unknown what Microsoft"s plans are for Skype, and whether or not they plan on integrating it into their Windows Live services, or merge some of the technologies into their current software services. Gates says the idea behind the takeover was "strategic", and "the idea of video conferencing is going to get so much better than it is today."
There are a lot of interesting takes on the takeover, one being that Microsoft is looking to integrate video chat for their mobile devices.