Qik, the company behind video conferencing on the HTC Evo 4G, and many other mobile devices, has been acquired by video and voice over IP giant, Skype. Tony Bates, the CEO of Skype, has posted the announcement on the company's blog.
"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" said the CEO.
No word on how much the acquisition cost and when the two will officially join forces. We'll keep you posted as this week's CES plays out. [Skype]
Update: Mashable has confirmed that Qik has been purchased for $100 million bucks.
Reader comments
Qik acquired by Skype [update]
Didn't Skype have some sort of thing going with Verizon? How does that affect the Evo or whatever if Skype owns Qik now and they are in a deal with another company?
Now that Skype owns them how long before that service is no longer available and is folded into Skype Video Calling which will only be on devices using Tegra 2 Processors. On that note I find the fact that Skype is limiting their video calling to Tegra 2 Dual Core and not other Dual Core processors a limiting approach as it is.
Ah, crap. There goes the neighborhood.
Forget about updates and improvements. Hello carrier lock ins.
Skype has been dragging its feet for years on all platforms other than windows.
$100 million payout for Qik. Well done guys.
Skype on the Droid X is different from the version available in the market. But pretty lame either way. Will wait for Google Voice video chat.
Tango Video chat for the win.
this is great! I'm betting Qik will soon disappear and everything will become Skype. This is very cool, as I bet our EVO's get an update to Skype with video soon.
GOOD!!! Qik is a piece of cr@p that rarely works. Anything will be an improvement!!!
Qik never worked well IMO. Waiting for a Google solution.
Google Talk will probably be the answer for video calling by the end of the year. Just my opinion
Qik just sucks, what a waste, its complete garbage and the videos recorded with it are very grain just an eye sore. I have to record videos with the default camcorder app on my Evo and use Qik to upload them the their site to get good quality videos. They didn't even bother to integrate it to the Evos calling app like the my touch 4g. Screw Qik and shame on Skype for wasting their money.
I never even understood the point of Qik. I have it on my Evo but could never understand how to work it.
Well there goes the Qik service. Its either going to loose its freeness or just go away altogether.
Rats. And I just uploaded my first video. Haven't found anyone to video chat with yet. Doesn't seem to be anything on QUIK's website about any of this at the moment.
Google Talk FTW! When exclusive carrier deals and lockins threaten the free market rely on google to shake things up. Google Talk will bring video calls to android soon according to rumors. Hopefully they will bring it to iOS and other platforms too. Enough of this exclusive nonsense! I hope to see skype crumble under the weight of google voice and google talk.