back to article Report: Microsoft is thinking about splashing $10bn on Discord to slot it next to Skype, Mixer...

Microsoft is apparently mulling snapping up Discord, an IRC-a-like-for-the-2020s popular with gamers, techies, and others, for a whopping $10bn. Discord, founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, allows users to set up public and private chat servers, where people can talk to each other using using text, voice, and video, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why. Won't. Skype. Die?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Because it's still better than Teams?

      1. hammarbtyp

        Because it's still better than Teams?

        Ha Ha Ha...Oh wait you were being serious

        Ever since moving to teams we have not used Skype for idiots..sorry, business , once

        We have not missed to constant nagging, the 5% of CPU cycles and the awful user interface. The only benefit from SFB is for external phone calls.

        Teams on the other hand has been constantly improved, features added and is one stop shop for team communications, incorporating groups, calendar management, chat, video conferencing. I am not saying it is perfect, and zoom is far more fun, but seriously Skype is a legacy dinosaur that needs killing off

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Sorry...

          I was talking about the original Skype, not Skype for Business (previously Lync?) - that's not to be used, ever.

    2. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Why. Won't. Skype. Die?

      Once upon a time Skype was really good and really useful.

      How they managed to turn this success into

      Skype was blown away by Zoom last year as the coronanvirus pandemic took hold.

      Must rank as an amazing achievement in negative business strategy.

      Of course when I say that Skype used to be good, I'm not talking about Skype for Business which was pants and trying to change the name to hide from people knowing it's pants hasn't made any difference.

      Perhaps they could just find a backup tape of the Skype SW from the mid noughties and relaunch that.

      1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
        Devil

        Re: Why. Won't. Skype. Die?

        It ranks alongside their other stunning successes like the acquisition of Danger, the Kin phone, Clippy and Microsoft Bob.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hope they don't get it, as I'm sure they will soon "improve" it by removing functionality and adding non-stop ads.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Missunderstanding Success

      M$ keeps buying these companies, but It doesn't seem to get that a big part of their success is that they were 3rd party solutions and lacked the arbitrary restrictions and interference that cripple most of M$/Sony/Nintendo's 1st party efforts. This is due in no small part that small companies can't survive the level of systemic incompetence, hubris, and greed that the majors can tolerate. So no real surprise that these projects wither or die after acquisition, it's like putting fresh water guppies in a salt water shark tank.

      That said I totally get why a company like Skype was happy to run off with the paycheck, just not what pathological madness drives M$ and Sony to keep flushing billions down the toilet acquiring, ruining, and then closing beloved 3rd party products.

      Buying Discord will bring them neither success, fortune, or goodwill. It will just make Slack jealous(and even less relevant, despite it's popularity).

  3. mark l 2 Silver badge

    If MS buy Discord they will change the UI with ever new release and loose users because of it. MS reputation for chat apps have not been good since they killed of MSN messenger and forced everyone over to Skype.

    I am not actually Discord user but news of MS sniffing around it can't be good for its future.

  4. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Meh

    Bye-bye Discord

    It was great while it lasted.

    I did wonder how they were going to pay for all that cloud capacity.

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Can't wait

    I can't wait to find out how quickly Borkzilla will emasculate Discord's usefullness and destroy its user base before going sulking back into its corner, having still understood nothing about the Internet works.

    Oh well, the beancounters are just going to have to prepare to write off another ten billion. They're used to it.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Bye Discord

    Discord needs a Microsoft account to login in 3... 2... 1...

    (see Minecraft)

    1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
      Devil

      Re: Bye Discord

      And if it follows the same path as they did with Skype and MSN messenger?

      "Microsoft would like to announce Discord for Business will be your new corporate chat app, replacing Microsoft Teams, which will close down at the end of the year..."

      Who's the one taking crazy pills here, me or them?

      1. J. Cook Silver badge

        Re: Bye Discord

        Unlikely; if anything, I imagine they'll position it as "Teams for Business and enterprise, DIscord for the rest."

        The two products have a startling amount of similarity, function wise.

        If it does go through, one can only hope that they do like they did with Github and leave it largely alone.

  7. Wade Burchette

    Same old story

    Big company buys little company. Over a relatively short amount of time, big company forces out the people who made small company. The energy and ideas that made small company are no longer around, thus the only people working on small company's product are those who are have no personal investment in it and have no idea why small company's product was so successful. Soon, big company ruined the small company's product.

  8. NetBlackOps

    Quite a few, and I mean a LOT of those Discords, don't respect copyright, licensing, or anything else IP related. You can kiss those Discords goodbye should MS purchase the platform.

  9. trindflo Bronze badge
    FAIL

    They didn't just ignore Skype

    They centralized Skype, and that is what killed it. When they centralize Discord it will suck just as badly.

  10. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

    Skype's business offering is also being replaced with Microsoft Teams.

    And good riddance! Skype for Business, formerly Lync, was an absolutely bloody nightmare, even compared to Teams.

  11. vektorweg

    Me now sitting here, waiting for the Matrix hype

    Matrix anyone?

    1. SimplyIntricate

      Re: Me now sitting here, waiting for the Matrix hype

      It’s sad that in 2021 rather than living in a more connected world we just have a bunch of fragmented walled gardens of messaging apps that don’t talk to each other. I would love for something like matrix to take off or even work but the big players will never open up their API’s enough to let it work fully. Long live email and PSTN, at least they’re interoperable.

      1. UkForest
        Stop

        Re: Me now sitting here, waiting for the Matrix hype

        You realise that the PSTN network is being killed off in 2025 right?! (well that's the plan anyway)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Embrace. Extend, ...

    ... Extinguish.

    1. Maventi

      Re: Embrace. Extend, ...

      Anticipating the "extend" stage is a bit optimistic in this particular case.

    2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Embrace. Extend, ...

      Discard in this particular instance.

  13. Rick Deckard

    And as always they'll add features and functions that they will tell you you need to enrich the user experience and that nobody will ever use and deprecate features and functions that people always use and want...

    They just can't help themselves...

  14. hammarbtyp

    standard MS business model

    Spend billions take over a competitor, destroy its core functionality to fit better into the windows business model, reduce funding until a competitor comes in and replaces it, spend billions creating your own version that does the same thing.

    To be honest, I don't know why everytime they buy these things they just instead pile a few billion greenbacks in a big bonfire and publically set light to it. I think they would be more cost efficient

  15. naive

    It would be great if MS can inform employers

    When their employees are into discord. Linking up accounts is a no brainer for them.

    No privacy from the Big-tech equivalent of Saurons eye seems to be our unavoidable destiny in this great capitalist world of mice where every good idea gets squashed and exploited by a gang of four elephants.

    On the plus side, we of course will then also receive better personalized ads for the latest games.

  16. Borg.King

    Discord might improve sufficiently

    to compete with Teams.

    Better buy it and kill it, and have its brilliant, and now wealthy, creators sign a commitment to not create a competitor to any MSFT product ever again.

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