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微软会把Skype作为核心业务吗?

微软会把Skype作为核心业务吗?

JP Mangalindan 2011-05-12
最想要Skype的公司:微软。Skype能否聚合微软过长的产品线,并提高微软的科技形象?

    在接下来的几年里,你将会听到很多关于视频聊天的新闻,这要归功于微软公司(Microsoft)斥资85亿美元收购了大热的网络电话公司Skype。微软和Skype日前通过一份联合声明确认了这起收购。85亿美元是微软有史以来抛出的最高价码了,次之的是数字营销公司aQuantitive,微软2007年以63亿美元的价格将其收购。

    尽管Skype此前已经透露了进行首次公开募股的意向,不过在过去几天里,关于Skype即将被收购的消息还是传得满天飞,有消息指出Facebook和谷歌(Google)都是有兴趣的潜在买家。据称谷歌还明确表示了与Skype进行合作,甚至将其收购的兴趣。据路透社指出,Skype无论与Facebook和谷歌中的哪一方进行交易,交易价格都会在30亿到40亿美元之间,显著高于Skype通过首次公开募股可能募集到的10亿美元左右的资金。

    不过根据风投机构安德森-霍洛维茨基金(Andreessen Horowitz)的共同创始人马克•安德森的说法,微软是唯一一个认真报价的买主。微软在今年早些时候加入竞争,在四月中旬最后敲定了交易价格,然后在前两天正式签署了协议。

    “Skype只与微软一家进行了真正的交易谈判。”安德森告诉《财富》(Fortune)杂志:“我们没有与任何其他公司进行类似程序。也没有其他公司像微软一样抛出报价。”

    这次收购价格之高,可能让一些科技观察人士吃惊不已。不过不管是哪家大公司想吃下Skype,他们都没有别的选择,只能预先付出一大笔赌注。最近的交易——甚至是那些失败的交易,如谷歌收购团购网站高朋(Groupon)的传言,都指向了一个趋势:当像微软一样的大公司想收购一家热门的新生企业时,如果他们想获得那家企业的人才和必要的技术,以保持其竞争力的话,那么他们最好接受事实,准备承担高额溢价。

    交易完成之后,对于未来来说,更重要的是Skype能为微软做些什么;而有了Skype的技术之后,微软又能做些什么。据报道,Skype目前拥有1.7亿用户,年增长率为40%。

    安德森表示:“这绝对是双倍下注。Skype本身就是一项核心的、基本的基础建设网络架构。我们把它称作”核心100俱乐部”中的一员。它是少数几项拥有1亿以上用户,而且平均每位用户每月使用100分钟以上的服务之一。它是一家领先的公司,成功地将产品由网下转移到了网上。”

    微软公司具有雄心勃勃的计划,想将Skype整合到微软旗下的许多产品中去。在日前的新闻发布会上,微软首席执行官史蒂夫•鲍尔默概括地谈到了将Skype与微软的Xbox Live和Xbox Kinect动作控制器等产品进行整合的计划。此外微软还可能把Skype与Outlook和Hotmail的邮件体验进行整合,就像谷歌最近对Gmail所做的那样。此外最有趣的也许当属将Skype与安装了Windows Phone 7系统的智能手机进行整合,以增加使用WP7系统的用户数量,使WP7“进入下一高度。”例如鲍尔默举了这样一个例子:如果孩子们的父母来不及参加家长会,那么他们可以利用WP7手机通过视频聊天的方式参加家长会,而不需要进行特殊的设置。

    鲍尔默在声明中指出:“我们是一家非常有雄心壮志的公司。我们向前的势头和追求新事物的势头是不可扼制的……有时候我们会自己制造一些产品,例如‘必应’(Bing)搜索引擎和Kinect控制器等。我们会和其他公司结盟,以抓住时机。此外我们也会进行并购,如同我们今天宣布的这起收购一样。”

    鲍尔默希望Skype可以成为微软版的FaceTime——Facetime是苹果公司(Apple)的一款视频聊天软件,苹果将其整合到了台式机、笔记本电脑和移动平台上。微软想将Skype打造成公司的一个全新的、独立的业务部门,这个想法是很雄心勃勃的:微软的产品线分布得太长,而且一向以因循守旧而出名。而从本质上讲,鲍尔默是想通过引入外来者,将他们的技术变为自身软件和服务生态系统的一部分。如果这样做的确有效,那么它不仅会提高用户体验,也会吸引更多的顾客使用这些产品。如果这样做没有效果——如果Skype的高管被排挤在重大决策之外,或者未能保住他们的领域,未能成功将他们的技术整合到微软的产品中,那么届时所有人都可以清楚地在微软的资产负债表上看到他们的财务业绩。

    译者:朴成奎

    You'll be hearing about video chat a lot more over the next few years thanks to Microsoft's headline-making $8.5 billion acquisition of the popular Internet telephony company Skype, which both companies confirmed in a joint announcement earlier today. It's the largest sum Microsoft (MSFT) has ever forked over for a company, beating the $6.3 billion it paid for the digital marketing firm aQuantive in 2007.

    Despite Skype's stated intention to go forward with an initial public offering, speculation over a buyout had been heating up over the last few days, pointing to several interested parties like Facebook and Google, who has allegedly expressed interest in partnering with and even acquiring the company. According to Reuters, a deal with either party would have valued at between $3 billion and $4 billion, significantly more than the $1 billion the company's IPO would have raised.

    But according to Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the only serious offer came from Microsoft, which entered the picture earlier this year, finalized the deal price in mid-April, and signed off last night.

    "The only actual deal negotiation was with Microsoft," Andreessen told Fortune. "There were no other companies that we ran a process with. No other companies put an offer on the table like Microsoft did."

    While tech watchers reel from sticker shock, whatever big company wanted Skype the most probably never had a choice but to ante up. Recent deals, and even recent failed deals, like the Google/Groupon talks, all point to one trend: when big companies like Microsoft want a shiny new company to acquire, they better be ready to suck it up and pay a huge premium, if they want to gain the talent and technology necessary to remain competitive.

    With the deal done, what's more important going forward is what Skype can do for Microsoft and what Microsoft will do with Skype technology, which currently reports 170 million users and 40% growth year over year.

    "This is definitely a doubling down," Andreesen continued. "Skype itself is one of the core, fundamental infrastructure Internet services. We talk about it as one of the 'Core 100 Club.' It's one of the very few things more than over a hundred million people use more than a hundred minutes a month. It's sort of the leading company and product in transition from offline to online."

    As for Microsoft, the company has ambitious plans of integrating Skype into many of the products in its ecosystem. At its press announcement this morning, CEO Steve Ballmer broadly discussed plans of integration with Xbox Live and the Xbox Kinect motion controller, tying it into the Outlook and Hotmail email experience much in the same way Google recently did with Gmail, and perhaps most interestingly, offering it on Windows Phone 7 devices as a way to increase WP7 user adoption and "take it to the next level." As one example, Ballmer mentioned scenarios where parents can call in and video chat if they're running late to a PTA meeting, no special setup required.

    "We're a super ambitious company," Ballmer remarked at the announcement. "We're irrepressible in moving forward and pursuing new things. … Sometimes we build things ourselves as we've done with Bing and Kinect. We'll form alliances to seize the moment and at other times, we'll make an acquisition as we're announcing today."

    It's Ballmer's hope that Skype becomes their equivalent of FaceTime, the tightly-integrated video chat software Apple (AAPL) is pushing across its desktop, laptop and mobile platforms. Microsoft's goal in making Skype a new, independent business unit of the company is ambitious: essentially, Ballmer wants to bring in outsiders and make their technology part and parcel of Redmond's far-flung and notoriously fiefdom-driven ecosystem of software and services. If it works, it will not only improve user experience, but attract more customers to those products as well. If it doesn't -- if Skype executives are frozen out of big decisions or unable to defend their turf and integrate their technology into Microsoft products -- their fiscal performance should plain as day for all viewers of Microsoft's balance sheet to see.

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