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Ebay might sell Skype
THE DARK SATANIC RUMOUR MILL is suggesting that Ebay might be wanting to shift its Voice over IP outfit Skype.
The Times newspaper, quoting industry insiders, said that Ebay signalled its intent last week after John Donahue, its chief executive, described Skype as a "great stand-alone business".
Such talk apparently means that Ebay would be happy to dump Skype if it were offered a cheque with enough zeros on the end of it.
It is looking like Ebay could do with the cash as it had a disappointing fourth-quarter profits, which had been hit by slowing consumer spending.
In a chat with analysts and hacks, Donahue admitted that Skype had nothing really in common with the rest of the business and was suffering from a bad case of 'the synergies' which can be particularly bad when your 'paradigm' is not what it used to be.
He said that he would continue to run and operate the business as it is not a distraction, which does not sound like he is enjoying the experience much.
Ebay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion but has admitted that it paid too much for it.
Those in the know said that Google should be interested as it would fit well with the search engine's similar Google Talk feature.
Other buyers could be the US telcos AT&T or Verizon. µ
L'Inq
Times
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Skype would be a much better product if Google had it anyway. Ebay has done nothing for it. Ebay itself is a dodo; it is all crap on that site, only a matter of time before Amazon kills it.
I don't see Google buying Skype for billions of dollars though. Hopefully the Gmen have more sense than that.
Unless, of course, they could purchase Skype with TARP funds... entirely possible.
Tis a beautiful thing, America, where they tax the poor and give to the rich. Our trickle down economics will fix us all, fix us good.
At least we have our bombs, lots and lots of bombs... "what's that you say?"
Skype is a money-loser. What assets have they got? Just a proprietary piece of software that doesn't even interoperate properly with all the other VoIP software out there. So who would buy them? It would be a waste of money.
This might be good for Skype. Then they could get rid of the compulsory use of PayPal when you are buying Skype credits. My wife uses Skype to talk to her mother on a landline in Ukraine from Australia all the time because its much cheaper than calling cards, has good voice quality and doesn't drop out all the time. What gets my goat is the compulsory use of Paypal to buy the Skype credits - something Ebay wanted but the ACCC knocked out for Aussies to trade on Ebay.
Oh god PLEASE let google buy it. Ebay seems determined to run it into the ground, skype v4 is awful.
If one of those US carriers picks it up its game over :(