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Cisco appeals European Commission's approval of Microsoft-Skype deal, wants to avoid proprietary future

Cisco appeals European Commission's approval of Microsoft-Skype deal, wants to avoid proprietary future

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Cisco has entered an appeal to the European Commission's approval of Microsoft's deal to purchase the VoIP company. In a blog post Cisco says that it isn't seeking for the deal to be stripped of EU approval. Instead, it wants to see conditions placed that would prevent Microsoft from taking over all video communications with proprietary platforms that don't play nice with other systems (like Cisco's).

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Skype may now be formally rolled up into a division at Redmond, but that hasn't stopped Cisco from entering an appeal to the European Commission's approval of Microsoft's deal to purchase Skype. In a blog post, Cisco says that it isn't seeking for the deal to be stripped of EU approval. Instead, it wants to see conditions placed that would prevent Microsoft from taking over all video communications with proprietary platforms that don't play nice with other systems (like Cisco's).

In a statement released to All Things D, Microsoft says that it is "confident the Commission's decision will stand up on appeal," and cites that Cisco "actively participated" in the original investigation that ultimately led to complete approval of the acquisition free of any conditions. Cisco cites that Microsoft plans to integrate its business-centric Lync communications service and its newly-acquired Skype platform into one integrated, but proprietary solution. It sounds like Cisco's afraid of getting squeezed out by Microsoft, but of course the company says it's appealing (alongside European VoIP provider Messagenet) with the intention of creating open standards that make video communications easy for all to use — just like telephone and email communications are today.