Microsoft acquires largest P2P network on the planet

Microsoft just announced that it is going to acquire Skype.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) and Skype Global S.à r.l today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake.

There will be a lot of talk about how much Skype is really worth. But central to the success of skype is something else, they are the largest P2P network around (the investor group bought back all the IP to the P2P network). The question is: If you had an enormous P2P network, with a client running all of the time, connecting every kind of computing device, what could you do with that?

The Future of Microsoft can’t be Windows. An OS is no longer the center of attention for the user. Users buy computers to get on the internet to communicate. If you can become the communication infrastructure between devices, you have the next best thing to an operating system.

Now the only question is how do you make money with that?

If I’m right, Microsoft will acquire dropbox.