Microsoft Acquires Skype

Microsoft is paying over US$8 billion for Skype. First question: are they nuts? Yes, they are most definitely nuts paying that much for a company that is basically on life support. Their reasons for acquiring Skype are a mystery.

But the more important question is: how long before they kill the the Linux client? Of course, Microsoft is promising to continue supporting Skype on non-Windows platforms, but I'm not convinced. Linux being a competing OS has nothing to with it. The Skype Linux team will likely fall with the employee cuts that are SOP when you acquire another company.

I will be looking more seriously at other options. Perhaps this will be the wake up call that provides the impetus to develop a good free VOIP client. I can only hope.

N900: Last Of The Breed?

With Nokia now partnered with Microsoft, I wonder if the N900 will be the last of the breed of truly open Linux based phones. This Nokia QT blog post indicates that a MeeGo device will ship this year, and that Nokia will continue to work on the MeeGo open source project, which is certainly encouraging. We can only hope that the deal with Microsoft doesn't preclude future Linux based devices. Time will tell.