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Skype has acquired video streaming service Qik, the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Skype CEO Tony Bates confirmed the announcement on the companyblog: “I’m happy to announce that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik,” he wrote…
The news was first leaked by Business Insider Thursday morning. The source who revealed the news claims that the deal cost Skype approximately $100 million.
Qik allows users to host two-way live video calls on a range of smartphones, as well as record and share video via e-mail, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a number of other platforms.
Qik’s userbase catapulted to 5 million users in 2010, up from 600,000 at the beginning of the year, thanks in part to partnerships with major telecom providers like T-Mobile.
“Skype and Qik share a common purpose of enriching communications with video, and the acquisition of Qik will help to accelerate our leadership in video by adding recording, sharing and storing capabilities to our product portfolio,” Bates wrote. “Through this acquisition, we’ll also be able to take advantage of the engineering expertise that is behind Qik’s Smart Streaming technology, which optimizes video transmission over wireless networks,” he added.
Skype and Qik have two important board members in common: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who could have helped facilitate the deal.
