 Re: Is skype owned by paypal?
What happened?
Well, Skype was a lovely company and was way ahead of its competition- In all honesty, Skype was THE only company out there that provided a call/video call service of that quality and they did it all for free, with GREAT quality and support.
Then Microsoft bought them and thats when everything went tits up. Microsoft wanted control of everything, sold the thing to different companies so that they could use it with their laptops, phones and other devices. Basically tried to make as much money as possible, by converting the excisting technology into something that they could put inside of every single thing that they produce or can produce. I'm surprised my microwave oven doesn't have Skype connection.
Weird enough, I know personally one of three software engineers/developers who worked on Skype before it was ever famous- Just a good family friend of ours, known them since I was a kid.
He was one of the Estonians that managed to crack the code and make Skype what it is now, together with two other Estonians and their Scandinavian partners(Who came up with original idea, but lacked the IT side/software side of things) AND I know a guy who is a head of Scandinavian Fraud department(Might be called something else now) and I've heard some great stories from both sides.
The early development stage is super interesting, because at the time technology was so much different than it is today- Most similar services that you see today are there because the Skype guys managed so do all the hard work, literally every big company offers the same services today, but these guys were doing it back when the technology of devices couldn't even support the product that Skype was! It's truly remarkable.
BUT, I've heard some serious bull**** stories from my guy who is up at the very top of the foodchain there and he was there BEFORE MS took over, and then a bit after- I believe he moved company now, just because it was impossible to work with MS.
What he sad was that the way MS just raped the product, without really dealing with problems was truly remarkable. They just rinsed the product and tried to get it everywhere, as quick as possible and that opened up doors for major fraud and also whats more important- They never bothered to develop Skype and MS products together so that they would work without problems. Skype as a product lost its very solid reputation because the users just suffered log in problems, crashes, just bad IT experiences in all honesty.
The problem was, and still is to this day, that MS bought the product not because of what it is, but because they wanted to have in everywhere in their devices and they wanted to IP more than anything, to then develop something similar or better in the future.
They got what they wanted, for a big price, but they stopped the competition and they can use the info that they bought for something that they develop in the future. Skype was never about having SKYPE, it was about what came with it and their position in the market.
Its no wonder they don't develop it and its everywhere- It's like a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ pair on sneakers now, or a new version of MSN chat(For those who can remember) but even now, its becoming a bit old because of Snapchat and Whatsapp.
MS just bent Skypt over and took it with force, never bothered raising the child that it made. Shameful.
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Is skype owned by paypal? 
