![]() Continuing Bates’ mission to blur the lines between consumer and business communication which he branded "B2X" at the Lync 2013 Conference, he announced that Lync, Microsoft's business communication solution, would be connected to Skype, and announced that Skype/Lync connectivity was expected by the end of June 2013. Īs the president of the Skype Division, Bates focussed on extending Skype reach across key Microsoft products like Internet Explorer (August 2011), Bing (Skype Bing Reward and Bing Bar in February 2012), Windows 8 (October 2012), Windows Phone (November 2012), Outlook (January 2013), and most recently upgrading Windows Live Messenger with Skype. When Skype was officially acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in May 2011, Bates announced that he wanted to eventually reach 1 billion connected users on Skype. In 2010, Bates made plans to offer paid premium phone and video services such as group videoconferencing, call waiting and answering services.īy the time Microsoft bought Skype, Bates had grown the monthly Skype user base to 170 million connected users per month. "The world previously looked very much like there was a business world and a consumer world," Bates said in 2010. He was looking for ways to monetize Skype and envisioned extending Skype beyond recreational and video calling. ![]() When Bates joined Skype, only 6.5 percent of its users paid to make calls from their computers to landline or mobile devices. īates was hired as CEO of Skype in October 2010. He said in 2004, and when they ran the details of his Skype ID to verify, the engineer admitted that Bates started using Skype before he had. Bates said that once he joined as CEO, a key engineer in Estonia asked him how long he had been using Skype. According to the story, he wrote three names on a piece of paper and Skype was one of them. ![]() In a 2011 interview with Voice on the Web, Bates admitted that one of his personal goals was to become the CEO of a company before age 45. Projects such as Cisco's integration with Scientific Atlanta gave him a glimpse of the user side of the Internet. Īlthough his primary function at Cisco remained dedicated to infrastructure, other opportunities arose that sparked his interest. He was employed at Cisco for more than 14 years and rose to senior vice president and general manager, heading up the enterprise, commercial and small business divisions. He worked on the strategy and operation for the Internet MCI IP backbone.īates joined Cisco in 1996. In 1994, he moved to Virginia, which at the time was considered the nexus of the Internet. ![]() He left the University of London Computer Centre in 1992 to work in Amsterdam on a Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne (RARE)-funded project as part of the RIPE NCC, an organization responsible for establishing the Europe IP registry and a number of operational standards for European networking. academic network JANET from the academic Coloured Book protocols to TCP/IP, helping to create the JANET IP Service (JIPS). Bates was fortunate to be involved in the early days of the Internet running the Arpanet gateways between the U.S. He capitalized on this commute time by teaching himself the C programming language and by learning UNIX through DEC manuals. During his time at the university, his commute was one hour by train each way. īates’ first job was at the University of London as a network operator in the computer center where he worked from 1986 to 1992. He dropped out of his mechanical engineering program at South Bank Polytechnic. He was raised in Teddington by his hairdresser mother and stepfather who worked as a builder. On Bates was appointed to CEO of Genesys.īates was born in 1967 in West London. He published a number of IETF RFCs and holds a number of patents. He first applied his experience to large-scale consumer products and services following Cisco's acquisition of the Scientific Atlanta set-top box business, and subsequently as Chief Executive Officer of Skype Technologies. As of August 2018, he serves on the boards of eBay and VMware. In the past, he has served on the boards of YouTube, TokBox, BubbleMotion, LoveFilm, SiriusXM, GoPro. Previously, he held a number of technology based business roles including the former president of GoPro, and the former executive vice president of Microsoft responsible for business development, strategy and evangelism and former CEO of Skype.īates, a university dropout, began his career in network operations and internet infrastructure. Bates is the former CEO of Growth at Social Capital. Bates (born 29 April 1967) is a British born business leader.
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