On August 30th, 2005, Microsoft announced that it has acquired Teleo, a provider of VoIP software and services that enable people to place phone calls from PCs to traditional or mobile phones. Microsoft will combine the tools and the know-how of Teleo with Microsoft’s existing VoIP investments in MSN. But not only Microsoft is boosting its VoIP offering: Google has added VoIP features to Google Talk, while Yahoo bought Dialpad two months ago. But the market leader in VoIP is still Skype, and its software offers much more than what Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are currently offering. Furthermore, Skype has instant messaging and file sharing functions.
We expect Skype to receive several acquisition offers, particularly now that Microsoft has bought Teleo, and a (currently hypothetical) Google-Skype combination would be a giant force in the VoIP/IM software market. Perhaps that is even the reason why Google is extending its capital with an additional 4 billion USD via a secondary offering of stock.
Posted by Patrick Van Renterghem at August 31, 2005 12:22 PM