Skype is not just sitting around waiting for its planned acquisition by Microsoft to be officially approved and closed. The Internet phone company is staying busy with some work of its own. On Sunday the company announced that it has bought GroupMe, a mobile messaging company that"s based in New York City and was founded in 2010. While Skype didn"t announce the specific financial terms of the deal, AllThingsDigital claims via unnamed sources that Skype paid $85 million to acquire GroupMe.
The premise of GroupMe is to allow the user to send group text messages via mobile phones. The GroupMe app can also handle conference calls, allow users to share their locations with others and also share photos with groups. The service is free with apps available for phones for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 smartphones. However it can still work with any phone that has text messaging capabilities. Tony Bates, the CEO of Skype, said in the press release announcing the deal, "The GroupMe team has created an incredibly sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making this a perfect addition to the voice, video and text products in the Skype family."
As we mentioned, Skype is still in the middle of its planned acquisition by Microsoft. The company announced back in May that Microsoft would buy out Skype to the tune of $8.5 billion. While the US government gave its approval for the deal earlier this summer it still has to be given the thumbs up by European countries before it"s official.