The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. May 11, 2011 Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion -------------------------------------- The tech giant Microsoft has announced it will purchase the online phone calling service, Skype, for $8.5 billion, in its most expensive acquisition to date. Microsoft is expected to gain roughly 600 million worldwide users as a result of the deal. Skype CEO Tony Bates helped announced the sale. Tony Bates: "We think there is a tremendous amount of opportunities as we look forward. We think this allows us to extend, not from hundreds of millions, to literally billions. We believe that this is a platform and a set of services that can reach everyone on the planet." .