I was thinking whether there is a positive side to the Microsoft buyout of Skype. Everyone seems to be worried because of bad bad Microsoft. Personally I’m a bit more worried about some other giant companies. That’s not to say I’m not also worried about Microsoft in a sense.
My guess is that the market power of Microsoft will give enough incentive to certain institutions to try and force them to open/document the protocol – or parts thereof. Imagine other instant messengers finally to be able to talk the text protocol of Skype (not even telephony) without extra gateways or the DLLs that come with Skype.
All is not lost.
// Oliver