Cisco Systems has announced that is going to appeal the European Union’s regulatory clearance of Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. The reason behind the decision seems to be the growing number of concerns related to the fact that the software giant will probably end up dominating the video calling industry, leaving no room for competition.
Cisco Systems is a network equipment maker, which essentially sells high-end video calling equipment. Now you understand why the company is so interested in the Microsoft- Skype deal. Cisco wants the court to consider the fact that maybe Microsoft should have been compelled to open its video networking services to other users who refer to use other platforms, before it was given the official go-ahead.
The deal was given the green light by the European Commission after just five months of making the announcement – in October – without employing any particular in-depth methods of investigation and focus. Back then Cisco tried to plead for its caused pointing out that Skype’s 145 million users combined with Microsoft’s networking tools will make competition obsolete.
What they want now, is for the European Commission to force Microsoft’s hand, in order to allow their own users to call contacts with Skype or with other tools like Google Talk. “Making a video-to-video call should be as easy as dialing a phone number. Today, however, you can’t make seamless video calls from one platform to another, much to the frustration of consumers and business users alike.”
Cisco has been struggling to keep floating ahead in the past year. It has been trying to experiment in all sorts of ways but this drastic makeover ended up costing 11,000 employees their jobs. Worldwide Cisco is the employer of 63,465. At the moment, all the energies of the company are focused on the switching and routing equipment business, as well as on videoconferencing.
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