Would Google buy Skype?
Google has made some interesting moves lately that point to a move into the unified communications arena. Today Google named Patrick Pichette CFO. Pichette’s experience at BCE in Canada could be a boon for Google as it explands its offering and possibly peers with service providers for a UC offering. Picture this, a merge of GTalk, GMail and the power of the Google Apps and Gadgets APIs with the installed base and technology of Skype.
Skype has underperformed since being purchased by ebay. I can’t say I’m surprised. That acquisition always puzzled me from a business integration perspective. Ebay could offload Skype to Google which would make ebay’s shareholders happy. Google would likely pick up Skype for a song and it could provide a lot of value as the core to an “all-google” unified communications offering. It’s another area where Google could compete with Microsoft coming from the grassroots users upward and challenging in the enterprise applications arena.