According to a press release published earlier today, Microsoft has closed and finalized its acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion with approval from both company’s board of directors and regulation committees from around the world.
The news comes straight from The Official Microsoft Blog in a post from Skype CEO, Tony Bates where he confirms the finalization of the acquisition and discusses how joining forces with an innovative company like Microsoft will accelerate Skype’s mission to capitalize on their position at “the intersection of social, mobile and video communications”.
Microsoft’s official press release on the acquisition:
REDMOND, Wash., and LUXEMBOURG — Oct. 13, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) has closed its acquisition of Skype Global S.à r.l. Negotiations of the definitive agreement under which Microsoft would acquire Skype, an Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion were led by investor group Silver Lake and the transaction was originally announced on May 10, 2011. Boards of directors of both Microsoft and Skype previously approved the acquisition.
Microsoft and Skype will remain focused on their shared goal of connecting all people across all devices and accelerating both companies’ efforts to transform real-time communications for consumers and enterprise customers. The completion of the acquisition also marks the official introduction of Skype as a new business division within Microsoft.
Microsoft announced the acquisition of Skype back in May for a whopping $8.5 billion. Earlier reports indicated that companies like Facebook and Google were also looking to acquire Skype, but Microsoft’s aggressive $8.5 billion was unmatched which, well, got them the acquisition of Skype.
The deal was only finalized yesterday after regulators from Europe and USA approved it, saying that they believed Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype would not impede effective competition as consumers would still have plenty of VoIP services to choose from.
Microsoft and Skype haven’t announced any new products after their acquisition, but it is expected that Skype will be deeply integrated into all of Microsoft’s current product lineup: Xbox, Windows Live, Windows Phone and, of course, Windows (the desktop OS) itself. Skype products will see continued development and support on platforms like Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, OS X and Linux.
Skype is now a division of Microsoft, Inc. with its CEO Tony Bates now assuming the role of President, Microsoft Skype Division. He will be now report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Skype employees located in offices in countries like Czech Republic, Singapore, Russia, UK and USA will continue working as they did before.
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