From what I saw, I felt like Microsoft bought Skype well before its modern Windows Phone plans quite started to take shape and that Microsoft didn't have much of an idea what to do with Skype other than Ebay was selling it and Microsoft preferred to own it than let it go to a competitor. (Thus far seems to be just about the only reason they recently bought LinkedIn, too. It was for sale and they didn't want it going to a competitor.) At the time of the Skype purchase it seemed that Microsoft was still trying to salvage what it could of MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger/Live Messenger/some other Brand of the Day which was leaking users like a sieve and meanwhile was fighting an internal fiefdom war with Lync, which was executing faster and smarter.
Basically, insert classic XKCD org chart diagram here of Microsoft being in a Mexican standoff with itself, especially at that time.
From that perspective, (and also one of being a Windows Phone 8 and now 10 owner), I don't think Skype was bought for Windows Phone and I don't think Skype is part of why Windows Phone is currently seeming rather atrophied. Instead, I think its Windows Phone where we've seen some of the hardest fought "battles" in the "One Microsoft" movement to de-escalate the old "mexican standoff" at Microsoft. (Which makes sense in a strange way: Microsoft couldn't afford as many "casualties" on the desktop or in the enterprise, so phone/mobile has been the proxy war.)
I think wanting a VoIP competitor to Apple's Facetime efforts was a part of the overall agenda for at least one of the messaging teams. But in terms of a lot of the shifts in branding choices and app approaches, I think a lot more of what we have seen in Windows Phone has been Microsoft's most externally visible battlefield where it has been trying to figure how best to merge all of its messaging and communications teams and destroy the old fiefdoms and silos (and guns pointed at each others heads). (All while marketing tries to fight from accidentally burning down a brand along with some of the bridges...) Windows Phone was just a useful catalyst (battlefield) to force that confrontation, without impacting the desktop too much.
That's essentially what this announcement seems to be about to me: the crashing down of another silo as Microsoft truly starts to consolidate its many communications apps.
Just a small correction: Microsoft bought Skype from Silver Lake / Andreessen Horowitz, not EBay. At the time Microsoft bought it, Skype seemed to prepare for an IPO, although I'm not sure how willing they were to go through with it.
Basically, insert classic XKCD org chart diagram here of Microsoft being in a Mexican standoff with itself, especially at that time.
From that perspective, (and also one of being a Windows Phone 8 and now 10 owner), I don't think Skype was bought for Windows Phone and I don't think Skype is part of why Windows Phone is currently seeming rather atrophied. Instead, I think its Windows Phone where we've seen some of the hardest fought "battles" in the "One Microsoft" movement to de-escalate the old "mexican standoff" at Microsoft. (Which makes sense in a strange way: Microsoft couldn't afford as many "casualties" on the desktop or in the enterprise, so phone/mobile has been the proxy war.)
I think wanting a VoIP competitor to Apple's Facetime efforts was a part of the overall agenda for at least one of the messaging teams. But in terms of a lot of the shifts in branding choices and app approaches, I think a lot more of what we have seen in Windows Phone has been Microsoft's most externally visible battlefield where it has been trying to figure how best to merge all of its messaging and communications teams and destroy the old fiefdoms and silos (and guns pointed at each others heads). (All while marketing tries to fight from accidentally burning down a brand along with some of the bridges...) Windows Phone was just a useful catalyst (battlefield) to force that confrontation, without impacting the desktop too much.
That's essentially what this announcement seems to be about to me: the crashing down of another silo as Microsoft truly starts to consolidate its many communications apps.