Ebay nabs Skype before anybody else

* UPDATE Ebay has just confirmed the acquisition, for $2.6 billion in cash and stock.

IT SEEMS that Ebay has, after all, acquired Skype in a deal estimated to be worth $2.6 billion. The deal was done after hefty interest from other sectors including News Corporation and Yahoo, claims the Financial Times.

So what does it mean? Well, it certainly cures one of Skype's major headaches - namely, how to bill people for low cost voice services. In order to gain major revenues, Skype needs to promote its paid-for services like SkypeIn and SkypeOut.

And if there's any service on the Net which surfers are prepared to trust to take their payments perhaps it's the Ebay/PayPal combo. Particularly since the former now owns the latter.

Since this acquisition has been widely anticipated - see Ebay allegedly in talks with Skype - there has been plenty of speculation as to new services which Ebay/Skype might develop. The most obvious one being live voice auctions where participants can bid without having to pay a single cent for the call.

So Ebay has the customers to rapidly expand Skype's already impressive userbase. It also has the billing mechanism. That just leaves one problem - technical support. One of the pair is going to have to put together a massive online call centre to handle the impending technical queries.

The number of queries will inevitably mushroom - especially after Skype increases the number of platforms that its client can run on - such as Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones.

And where's the obvious place to locate a call centre which has plenty of experience with dealing with VoIP technology? India, of course. µ

L'INQ
Financial Times