Microsoft shocked everyone when it announced it was buying Skype for $8.5 billion last year. Slowly but surely, we were expecting Skype to replace Microsoft’s own Live Messenger client as the default messenger and to be slapped it into every Windows Phone device and Xbox 360. While Microsoft’s stance is that Skype will remain in development for multiple platforms, it’s slowly becoming the company’s communication backbone. A Microsoft representative told BGR that about 80% of all instant messages sent over Skype are now sent over the company’s Messenger backend. Read the full story at Boy Genius Report.