A company whos product I use day in and day out as part of my job is being acquired by a larger company who I don’t really care for but am no doubt indebted to. I have mixed feelings about this.
Since September 2010 I’ve been working at CramerDev, and a key to our communication has been Skype. Per-project group chats as well as video chat when needed, it’s been a great tool.
We’re mostly a Mac shop (another key to our success IMO). Needless to say Skype 5 was seen as a horrible, horrible sin delivered upon us, as others eloquently put. I immediately reverted to Skype 2.8 (and you should too)
I’m not really worried about this. Skype 5 is pretty bad, and Skype 2.x is still supported. If Microsoft screws this up, which it may, I’m sure another competitor will shine and we’ll migrate. I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about Campfire lately.
Lastly, this GigaOM article sums up my prediction for both companies in this regard:
It won’t surprise me if Microsoft comes in for major heat on this decision to buy Skype — and the software company could always botch this purchase, as it often does when it buys a company. The Skype team is also full of hired guns who are likely to move on to the next opportunity rather than dealing with the famed Microsoft bureaucracy.h