Merger fever seems to have gripped the VoIP industry. We saw Comverse acquire Netcentrex in order to round out its triple play portfolio, and then it was the turn of Genesys to acquire VoiceGenie. So how come Skype, one of the largest VoIP providers could remain behind in this season of acquisition. It has gone head and acquired Sonorit Holding AS and its US subsidiary Camino Networks. The acquisition is expected to add some of the leading experts in online engineering to Skype's own team of technologists in order to help it design and develop Skype for the future.
This is what Niklas Zennstrom, CEO and co-founder, Skype had to say about the acquisition:
We're excited about bringing the talented Camino Networks team to Skype. They will add considerable expertise to our own world-class technology team.
I believe this acquisition would be of great help to Skype which is less dependent on licensed technology and is much more interested in building an in-house team and we must understand that since Skype is a growing company and growth cannot come only from the inside. This move will help Skype gain strength and compete with AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo all of which have loads of in-house talent. One thing that I would like to point out is that Sonorit is already entangled in litigation matters with GIPS, the same company which supplies the insides of much of Skype. Is this a move to strengthen itself or reduce royalty payments to GIPS? You never know!!!
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