Tag Archives: purchase

Microsoft buys Skype–what happens next?

As you may have been reading in the news, Microsoft has recently agreed to purchase the popular VoIP service Skype. After a couple of previous acquisitions in the past, Microsoft has made it’s biggest purchase – this time worth well over $8 billion.

Before I even start, I think it’s fair to say that this is either going to be a monumental win or a catastrophic fail – one or the other.

The question is, what will Microsoft do with Skype? Obviously, Skype certainly hasn’t been in the green lately – it’s debts have definitely been on the rise. So, Microsoft have evidently got to make a few considerable changes – otherwise the rather large purchase will become rather a large waste of money – even on Microsoft’s terms!

I can imagine Microsoft will probably implement increased charges for the paid services. However, I do hope that Microsoft will lower the charges for features in Skype that could potentially become very popular – such as group video calling. I happen to think that group video calling was a very well implemented feature into Skype – but unfortunately Skype started charging ridiculous amounts of money for it. If Microsoft lowered charges to £1-2 per month, I would probably consider purchasing it.

The other big question is whether they will continue to support all of the operating systems that Skype currently supports. Microsoft has never really supported Linux and people are starting to ask if Microsoft will drop support for it. Personally, it wouldn’t surprise me hugely if they did – but it would be a real shame.

The sale probably won’t finalise for another few months at least, so we’ll just have to wait and see what changes Microsoft will inevitably implement. In the mean time, enjoy Skype in it’s current form while you can!

Do you still buy DVDs (or physical disks) or do you buy digitally?

Digital online films are all well and good, but are they better than DVDs?

It amazes me – despite the fact that my computer is rapidly becoming my digital shopping centre, I’m still not sure whether it’s better to buy physical discs (in my case DVDs – my budget doesn’t stretch to Blu-Ray films… yet!) or whether to digitally buy them online.

Cost is still the biggest factor for me – and probably for most people. Often films are horribly expensive on digital stores, such as iTunes, when you can get them very cheaply on shops such as Amazon or eBay as a physical disk.

Also, even if I buy it as a physical disk I can still rip it to my computer and use it on whatever device I want. As far as I’m aware, I’m perfectly within my rights to do so if I own the disk and don’t share it with anyone else. If I buy the content through a digital provider, that may be subject to DRM which means I won’t be able to place it on my iPod or whatever.

I was interested to hear rumours that some stores were offering free digital downloads of content together with purchases DVD discs. I’m not entirely sure whether that’s true or not, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone can verify that info for me.

Do you buy discs or download them (legitimately, of course!)? I’m still a cost-cutter – so whatever is cheaper get’s my purchase! But there are many other factors such as quality or portability that should be considered.