SAN FRANCISCO: Imagine using your Xbox and switching from a game to a video chat with a faraway friend holding an iPad. Or going into your office email to invite Grandma to a virtual family reunion beamed on TV sets to relatives across the country.
Microsoft's $8.5 billion purchase of Skype is supposed to make using the Internet for video phone calls as common as logging on to Facebook or instant messaging is today.
If it wins regulatory approval, the deal announced Tuesday provides Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, with the means to sell more digital advertising and offer more popular conferencing tools to help businesses save money.
Skype's services also span hot markets online socializing, mobile phones and digital video where Microsoft has been struggling to catch up with Facebook, Apple and Google.
Analysts and investors couldn't seem to agree whetherMicrosoft is wasting its money on an unprofitable service or has pulled off a coup that will help it restore clout. Microsoft stock was virtually unchanged, falling 0.6 percent.
About 170 million people worldwide who use Skype regularly for calls and chats. Microsoft believes it can attract hundreds of millions more by weaving Skype into its products. Not just Windows, which runs on eight of every 10 computers and servers on the planet, but also its Outlook email program, software for phones and the Xbox video game console.
Microsoft already has a Skype-like service called Windows Live. But the real Skype is far more popular and bridges different computers and phones. Already, someone using the Skype application on an iPhone can talk to someone who has it installed on a Dell laptop.
For businesses, Microsoft has separate communications software. Building Skype into it would make it easier for corporate users to conduct video chats with people at other companies, or from home, said Bern Elliott, an analyst at the research firm Gartner Inc.
Skype allows users to make voice and video calls for free or pennies. Calls from one Skype account to another are free. Those to a landline or cellphone using the regular phone network cost money, but much less than going through the phone company.
It has become a popular way to avoid large phone bills. Skype is the largest provider of international calling services in the world, surpassing any single phone company, according to research firm TeleGeography.
Skype users made 207 billion minutes of voice and video calls last year almost 400,000 years' worth. Most of that was free, which has made it difficult for Skype to make money. Only about 5 percent of active Skype users pay for it.
Microsoft pledged to keep Skype in all the places it is currently available, including mobile devices that run of the software of two major rivals, Apple and Google. Skype users don't have to pay to install the software on Apple's iPhone, iPad computer tablet or devices running on Google's Android system.
The new ownership probably means more advertising in Skype's video services along with potentially compelling new uses. Skype only recently began experimenting with ads. Microsoft, which has a much larger sales team, intends to expand them.
The partnership would also bring Skype to the Xbox video game console and has sold 50 million copies, making it the world's No. 2 video game system behind the Nintendo Wii.
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