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Confirmed! Microsoft Bought Skype for $8.5 Billion

Its confirmed now! After Wall Street Journal’s report, All Things Digital has now confirmed that Microsoft just bought Skype for a huge amount of $8.5 billion.

This deal to buy Internet telephone company Skype is officially going to be announced early tomorrow morning.

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Early reports indicated that Facebook and Google were also looking to acquire the telephony giant, but it was Microsoft with its highly aggressive bid which got them.

To don’t know what is Skype, it allows users to make voice calls and chats over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has 663 million registered users as of 2010.

Skype is expected to be integrated in Windows Live, and other online services of Microsoft in both consumer and enterprise space.

According to the report -

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sees the Internet as an "essential battleground" for the company. Microsoft's Online Services Division lost $726 million last quarter. In the past year, the company has lost $2.5 billion from its online group. It's not immediately clear, however, how Skype would help turn those losses around. Skype lost $7 million in 2010 off of revenue of $860 million.

The official press is going to be released at 5 AM PT and we can expect lots of analysis whether Microsoft paid too much for Skype.

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