Obviously born to pay retail, Microsoft is gonna ante up $8.5 billion cash money to scoff up Skype and turn it into its new Skype Division with CEO, Cisco veteran Tony Bates, as president. Bates will report to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The price, more than Microsoft has ever paid for anything although it once offered $48 billion for Yahoo before it thought better of it, includes the assumption of Skype's roughly $700 million debt.
Although Skype's a freeware money loser - off $7 million on revenues of $859.8 million last year - Microsoft, which has had little luck with the Internet the past 15 years, said it expects the acquisition to generate significant new business and revenue opportunities.
Read more: .NET Journal