With Skype, Microsoft gains about 50 communications patents

So Microsoft has officially spent $8.5 billion on Skype and announced that the deal closed today. This is another "Hotmail" type acquisition in that it didn't seem to need the research. All it gained was users. Or did it? With Skype, Microsoft added about 50 patents covering networking, speech recognition, user interface, too. Hmm.

I'm not saying Microsoft thoroughly needs these patents for its war on Android, Chrome and Linux -- it signed one of its most significant deals prior to buying Skype as then as launching two lawsuits. However it truly announced a whole bunch of those agreements since March, when it went public with the Skype deal. It has gone gangbusters with deals in the past few weeks, afterwards it completed regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe..

Matter of fact developed

Despite Microsoft's broad patent portfolio from technologies it as a matter of fact developed, the company is hungry for more patents. It is part of a consortium trying to buy 6,000 patents and patent applications from Nortel. These span wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, service provider, semiconductors, etc. The Open Invention Network is trying to fight this sale -- or for the time being limit it so that these patents can only be used in a defensive manner, a la the settlement made when a consortium including Microsoft tried to buy Novell's patents. For years, Microsoft wasn't the bad guy when it came to patent trolls. With its deep pockets, it was far more often the target of lawsuits. Nevertheless with its licensing attack on Android, Microsoft has become the master of the patent troll playbook, no longer just the victim.

It will be curious to watch what Microsoft will do with Skype. Many assurances have been made by Steve Ballmer and former Skype CEO, Tony Bates, that Skype will not abandon its Android and Linux users. There is some reason to be hopeful on that count. Since Skype learned it would become part of Microsoft it worked feverishly to fix the biggest complaint against it -- a lack of support for video calls on most Android devices. In August and September, Skype added a slew of devices now supported for video calls, including the most popular HTC, Samsung and Motorola Android models as so then as the Galaxy Tab, some Sony Ericsson Xperia models, etc.

Microsoft didn't seem to actually need Skype to bring these capabilities into its products. It already has its own enterprise VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)/Web conferencing/instant messaging/research: Lync and has promised a big Lync/Skype integration, even though the details on that are for all that vague. Lync is everything considered sadly lagging in its mobile support. Lync was launched about a year ago in November with promises of integration with Windows Phone 7 and Xbox Kinnect. Now, Microsoft promises that all promised Lync mobile customers will be out by year's end. How does Skype fit in? Will it be an additional client or will a Skype client as well include secure access to enterprise Lync services? We'll see.

Meanwhile, let's just point out that Microsoft already had, in bits and pieces, all the research that Skype brings it. It had its own consumer IM/Internet video chat/Facebook chat... MSN Messenger. It already has not one, nevertheless two hosted Web conferencing services ... LiveMeeting and LyncOnline. Anyway you look at it, it as well has Lync, which isn't a new product either, and was sold for years prior as Office Communications Server.

It has taken more than a decade for Microsoft to capitalize on its purchase of Hotmail, way back in 1997 -- and the jury is all in all out on that one. Thanks to Hotmail, Microsoft can claim astronomical numbers of Windows Live users ... 500 million active users a month, the company recently reported. Microsoft may have when all is said and done figured out what to do with Windows Live via Windows 8 and WP7. I'd say Microsoft doesn't have a decade to capitalize on its Skype buy.

The editor of Microsoft Subnet

Julie Bort is the editor of Microsoft Subnet and Network World's Online Community Editor. She as well writes the Open Source Subnet blog and is the editor responsible for the Cisco Subnet and Open Source Subnet web sites. If you have an idea for a blog, or a news tip on Microsoft, Cisco or Open Source technologies, contact her at jbort@nww.com, 970-482-6454 or follow Julie on Twitter @Julie188.