Bill Gates says he moved the acquisition of Skype

One of Microsoft’s founders, Bill Gates, who is on the board at Microsoft , said that he was the key person behind the acquisition of Skype and urged the board to support it. The purchase cost Microsoft 8.5 billion dollar and is Microsoft’s most expensive shopping so far.

Bill Gates is no longer the VP at Microsoft but this is left to Steve Ballmer to handle, but he is still the chairman and has a lot to say. According to Gates he was the one to propose the purchase of Skype. That he speaks openly about this could mean he ran into resistance, but nothing we should speculate too much in.

During the BBC interview Gates said he believes it is a really good deal for both Microsoft and Skype and can’t wait for the innovations both companies can come up with together. We know that Skype will be integrated into nearly all products from Microsoft, and now the mobile market for smartphones and tablets is blooming Gates believes that video conferences and calls are important for business relations.

Up until we see Skype integrated into any of Microsoft’s products it is hard to say how good this deal really is, but for a company that is behind in the ultramobile front and has made many not so successful moves with Internet-based services Skype could turn out to be a good thing, since they also got 663 million registered users.