I don't understand why Microsoft took so long to do this. If they had been faster after Google Hangouts, it never would have gained a beachhead. Xbox One could easily find a secondary market as a conference room device; a Microsoft version of Airplay and Chromecast (ideally open to Mac and general web as well) would take more engineering, but would have been awesome too.
> If they had been faster after Google Hangouts, it never would have gained a beachhead.
That's why Microsoft took so long to do this. They had little incentive to do so until others did, and even when the writing on the wall was clear, they still faced the innovator's dilemma.
Innovator's dilemma matters if you're actually making money from your current product. Skype isn't in any way material to Microsoft's revenues, but is an important mindshare property (and could tie in to other Microsoft tools; integration on WP and Windows desktops, etc.)
I beg to differ. Nowadays Skype is always inquiring people to convert their account to a Microsoft Account! The "Metro"/"Modern" version of Skype for Windows 8 even requires a Microsoft account.
The vast majority of those people had a facebook account anyway. Using Skype to push Microsoft accounts gets people to create MS accounts that they didn't have. I imagine there's a selected-by-default checkbox in that process along the lines of "Send me exciting news an announcements about Microsoft products!"
Soon to be followed with "HEY BUDDY, DID YOU KNOW OFFICE 365 WORKS ON ALL YOUR DEVICES? AND IT'S 10% OFF!"
Even if the mindshare isn't directly valuable to Microsoft, it's valuable to Google. Keeping Google from getting it should have been more important than squeezing every last penny out of Skype.
"I don't understand why Microsoft took so long to do this."
Skype had free video group calls long before Google Hangouts even existed. If I remember correctly, they forced their users to pay for it a few months or a year after Google Hangouts launched, which was a really stupid move which surely helped Google's product a lot.
Group video was only free for a very limited time on the beta only on the Windows application. It became a paid product over a year before Google Hangouts launched.
I don't know either. I've been using Google Hangouts for the last few months, and those so easily could have been Skype chats instead if that was available. They let Google get so far along with this.
