Microsoft announced on Friday that it has completed its $8.5 billion purchase of Skype. Skype will exist as a new division within Microsoft and Skype CEO Tony Bates will continue to serve as the head of the Skype team. In addition, Skype’s employees around the globe will remain in their current offices. Microsoft confirmed that it will work to integrate Skype into its existing products, but it did not specifically say which products or when that would begin to happen. “We look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues — anytime, anywhere,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. The acquisition is still pending completion in several other countries. Read on for the full press release.

Microsoft Officially Welcomes Skype

Microsoft and Skype will empower people and businesses to connect in new ways.

REDMOND, Wash., and LUXEMBOURG — Oct. 13, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) has closed its acquisition of Skype Global S.à r.l. Negotiations of the definitive agreement under which Microsoft would acquire Skype, an Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion were led by investor group Silver Lake and the transaction was originally announced on May 10, 2011. Boards of directors of both Microsoft and Skype previously approved the acquisition.

Microsoft and Skype will remain focused on their shared goal of connecting all people across all devices and accelerating both companies’ efforts to transform real-time communications for consumers and enterprise customers. The completion of the acquisition also marks the official introduction of Skype as a new business division within Microsoft.

“Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “We look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues — anytime, anywhere.”

Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Skype Division of Microsoft immediately, reporting directly to Ballmer. The Skype division will continue to offer its current products to millions of users globally. Longer term, Skype will also be integrated across an array of Microsoft products to broaden Skype’s reach and accelerate its growth as a fundamental way people communicate online. Skype employees will continue to be located around the world in offices including Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.

“By bringing together the best of Microsoft and the best of Skype, we are committed to empowering consumers and businesses around the globe to connect in new ways,” Bates said. “Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s goal to reach 1 billion users daily,” Bates said.

Founded in 2003, Skype was acquired by eBay in September 2005, and then acquired by an investment group led by Silver Lake in November 2009. Skype has made impressive progress, developing new products and revenue streams, strategic acquisitions, acquiring the intellectual property powering its peer-to-peer network, and recruiting an outstanding senior management team.

Other members of the selling investor group led by Silver Lake include eBay International AG, CPP Investment Board, Joltid Ltd. in partnership with Europlay Capital Advisors; and Andreessen Horowitz.

The acquisition remains under review in a few countries, and will be completed in those countries when such reviews are closed.

Microsoft’s final build of Windows Phone Mango has been rubber stamped and released to manufacturers and wireless carriers according to Windows Phone Dev Podcast. The move is among the final steps before Microsoft delivers the Mango release to customers. The most recent reports have suggested that Microsoft will update current Windows Phone devices in September, although winrumors says the update could be pushed out as soon as August. Microsoft’s Windows Phone partners include HTC, LG, Samsung, Dell, Acer, Fujitsu, ZTE Corporation and Nokia, and we should see a number of new devices from those companies in the fall time frame. Mango was officially announced in May and Microsoft has promised that it will deliver more than 500 new features to the platform.

UPDATE: Microsoft’s Senior Director of Communications Bill Cox has stated that Windows Phone 7.5 Mango has not yet reached RTM, as Windows Phone Dev Podcast reported.

[via winrumors]

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In a note to fellow developers, Mozilla team member Damon has declared the end of February as the target ship-date for Firefox version 4.0.0. The post reads:

Over the past several days, component leads have again reduced their blockers by identifying hard blockers and those we can live without.  We’ve around 160 hard blockers remaining, and historically it has taken us six weeks to reach RC once we have 100 blockers left.  We must press hard now.

Damon goes on to write that the first release candidate of Firefox 4 should be out by the beginning of February with a final version shipped before the month’s close. Anyone out there anxiously awaiting the release of FF4?

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Adobe has just made a final, beta-less version of Flash 10.1 available to all those that have an Android 2.2 handset. The new bits are waiting to be downloaded from the Android Market as you read this. Go get the new hotness and let us know what you think!

UPDATE: It looks like currently only Nexus One owners are seeing the option to update to this latest version.

UPDATE: Just a word of warning — we’re getting reports from several Mac users that 3.5 has issues with restoring sessions/tabs after exiting and reopening the browser. By issues, we mean it doesn’t work. Windows users are seemingly not affected.

UPDATE 2: If you’re having the problem mentioned above, go to Firefox > Preferences > Privacy [tab]. If “Clear history when Firefox closes” is checked, click on Settings and uncheck “Browsing History”.

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