Abstract
Introduction: With the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft this month, Skype continues its growth and consolidate its number one rank on VOIP services around the world. There are new services offered to customers each year and Skype tries to attract more businesses in order to adopt their innovations. This is why I think it is interesting to focus on services offered by Skype for businesses. Thus, I will focus on business users (a new market segment) in France. The goal is to grow services and revenue. This will be market penetration and gaining market share.
Company background: Skype is a software application which allows people to make voice and video calls and to chat over the web. Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom who comes from Sweden, and by Janus Friis who comes from Denmark. In April 2003, the two domain names: Skype.com and Skype.net were registered. The first public beta version was released in August 2003.
Thanks to Skype, you can call other users for free. However, if you call traditional telephones and cell phones you have to pay, but it is cheaper than the traditional communication systems. Skype offers also instant messaging, file transfer, and videoconferencing. Today, Skype has 663 million registered users. Their network is operated by Skype Limited and their headquarters are in Luxembourg. On October 2005, eBay purchased Skype for 2.6 billion dollars. In May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communications, for 8.5 billion dollars.
