Why buy Skype?
Microsoft's reasons for buying the video-calling company do not add up
By M.G. | SAN FRANCISCO
“IRREPRESSIBLE” is a word that is usually used to denote something that is hard to control or restrain. Steve Ballmer, the boss of Microsoft, is obviously very fond of it. At a press conference on May 10th to announce the company's whopping $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, an online phone and video-calling service, he used the word several times to imply that Microsoft was still a dynamic company. But the firm's shareholders may end up wishing that Mr Ballmer had shown considerably more restraint when negotiating the firm's largest ever takeover.
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