So as you all might have heard Microsoft is going to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion in cash and you all might think what does this mean to the Lync business.
Well I see loads of possibilities, the first one is federation and from the press release we can read that “Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities” so this seems to be a priority. But when looking at how Microsoft prioritized a mobile Lync client I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The second one that comes to mind is to enable Skype as a siptrunking provider. This would also be great for Office 365 and Lync Online.
Microsoft also states that they will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms. So what I see here is a Skype client making a video call from android or iOS to a Lync client or a Xbox.
This will also hopefully open up Skype more looking at Microsoft previous investments in open interoperability.
Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Ballmer.
Update:
After watching the press conference I’m amazed that Lync was mentioned so many times, I think even more then Windows Phone so hopefully the Skype deal will bring gold to our Lync business. One area that Steve mentioned was that this deal will now make both business stronger and I can see this locally to since almost everyone of my customers asks for Skype integration. So this will for sure be one competitive strength against Cisco and the rest.
If we think of it from the video side, they mentioned that 40% of Skype’s traffic is video, that’s probably loads more than what I think we see in Lync, I might say 5-10% is video in Lync? (I have to update this after checking out some monitoring reports later)
What was also mentioned was that Skype is on 50 million TVs already, this will also enable these living rooms to connect to Lync.
Skype fits right in between your work and your life on a variety of devices and they were specific on that they will continue to support other platforms, since that is where they now and in the future will give them a competitive edge.
I also thought of one more thing that I hope they will incorporate in to Lync, the Skype Access service, lets say you are on an airport, and what this does is that even if you are not on the network as a paying customer, you can connect skype and make calls or video and skype just charges you 19¢ a minute for the time you are calling. No more expensive airport wifis to do Lync meetings or calls 
read more on Skype Access here http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/skype-access/
The comments in this post is my own and only speculations, guesses and wishes of what I hope could come in the future by this deal.
Press release
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/may11/05-10CorpNewsPR.mspx
