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Ebay Rumored to be Buying Skype
JDStone writes "Rumor has it that trusted sources from The Wall Street Journal say Ebay is interested in buying Skype. Later after the announcment, Ebay Inc. shares fell 4.3 percent."
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So will i be able to call and complain about the massive ebay fees with my skype account?
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
The spelling of Slashdot editors sure has gotten bad lately.
Back to the topic, why would EBay want to buy a peanut butter manufacturer? And if they did want to, I would think Jif would be a more appropriate takeover target.
(...wondering how many mods have their humor hat on)
I'm a big tall mofo.
Talks fail when at the last second some jerk bids $3,000,000,000.50
will we soon be attending live auctions via skype?
sure, sometimes I would like to look at the sellers face when he says, I didn't test the notebook, but I think it is running fine, but I won't guarantee...
W00t
Ebay is going to be outbid at the last possible moment. OUCH!
While they have a strong track record for supporting business and tracking developments in the business world, I take nearly everything they offer as rumor or opinion with a grain of salt. Remember that it was the WSJ that was an early flogger of Cold Fusion. They were speculating about the enormous potential of a science "discovery" that hadn't even been vetted by the larger scientific community. I wonder why they don't have a cold fusion section in their paper an more.
This marriage between Ebay and Skype does have some marginal plausibility due to the need for Ebay to spend some of its reserves capturing markets outside of the online auction business. Skype needs cash to fend off Microsoft's entry into VOIP. The rumor has some potential traction, but the market has given its opinion to the deal. A drop of nearly 5% in your stock price is something a CEO and board of directors can't easily ignore.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
from the article:
"Whenever a company may do something that's completely different than its historical focus, there is risk,'"
My qyestion is, what would ebay want with VIOP? Paypal and Half.com made sense for ebay to pick up, but I'm just not seeing this at all...
sorry 'bout the mess...
If this happens, I'll put money on it that the free pc to pc calls will become adware.
Best Windows Freeware
I mean other recent acquistions such as Shopping.com have made sense. Ebay is not a teleco. It doesn't fit with any other business lines. Ebay is about getting the best price on goods as Shopping.com, Half have proved. Why Skype?
Thalasar
With how much junk, and spam i get from eBay sponsors, and everything, just imagine the telemarketers trying to help "pay" for what is already the free end of Skype's service.
Yes, I said it.
Skype is the future.
When compared to taking all those support calls via AT&T.
Does this mean that I'll be getting people calling me for my ebay account info on my skype line now?
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
They should buy skype and give it to Paypal so that you can actually get a hold of those fuckers.
Rumor has it that trusted sources from Joe's coffee shop say that Sam might possibly be interested in thinking about considering reviewing the possibility of actually looking into purchasing a piece of pie.
Rumor has it that trusted sources from The Wall Street Journal say
Um, why the hell the contorted syntax? Why not just say:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting EBay is in talks to acquire Internet-telephony company Skype for $2 billion to $3 billion, in a deal that would represent a dramatic shift in strategy for the online auction giant. Bloomberg has the details for those without a WSJ account.
Geez, Taco. Grow up and act like a real editor.
eBay aren't a communications company, I would not have thought they have any particular expertise to leverage once they have acquired Skype. I mean eBay have obviously got commercial nous which is generally applicable but in the UK they only recently intorduced a 'My messages' feature.
As an aside I can think of nothing worse than receiving a call via Skype from someone in the Far East asking whether there is a Buy-It-Now price and can they pay by Western union.
Rumor has it that trusted sources from My Pants say Wang Enterprises is interested in buying Skype. Later after the announcement, My Pants fell 4.3 percent.
Come on. It's like everyone is rumored to buy Skype these days.
It's eBay, not Ebay.
Deus est fatalis
If she was called Katrina betwen her tits, what was the rest of her called? $25 on weekdays, $45 on weekends.
Google + Skype = soiled telco executive underwear
Ebay + Skype = telco executive goes "meh"
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
"Rumor has it ... Ebay Inc. shares fell 4.3 percent."
When will they ever learn....only Apple and Google stocks rise when rumors get out!
Bid for the best [online/real life/rental] [girl/boy]friend?
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
It's capitalization, not capitalisation.
"Ebay Inc. shares fell 4.3 percent."
You mean they're down to only "AAAAA++++++!!!111" now?
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
just like the real thing. that's the only thing that Skype coul bring that remotely makes sense.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Skype already turned down a billion dollar deal from another company. They're holding on to it.. I'm sure they wont sell to eBay.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Spot on.
:(
You have to read the comments (high level only) for the grown-up, level-headed reactions to stories
After a decade of rapid growth, eBay has stagnated. Now, with a $2 billion pile of cash and short-term investments, the San Jose Net auctioneer seems to be looking for some new direction.
It looks like eBay is trying to cash in on the Next Big Thing (TM).
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
that caused AOL to buy winamp
did you forget to take your meds?
NT :)
And the answer is: Yes
Bomba bing bomba boom
...I need a Paypal account to SkypeOut? I can see in the future that Skype will no longer be free but a "subscription service", brought to you by EBay.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Oh, wait.
I am trolling
``I don't know anyone who declares money received through paypal to the tax man.''
Well, now you do. BTW, the feds aren't interested in money that comes through paypal. They're only interested in net profit which may, or may not, have come in through paypal.
You're right. It is. STFU.
Since it looks like many people are interested in Skype, giving room for an auction-type atmosphere, will they eventually opt for the 'buy it now option'? And what is the reserve price set at? Will they fall victim to all the annoying 'features' currently found on ebay?
I liked Skype!
eBay knows exactly how to turn something brilliant into a cesspool of garbage and agrivating charges.
Please Google, come out with 'Gauction', 'Gmoney' and 'Gtalk' and spank eBay, Paypal, and eSkype off the planet!
(PS: If I can only have one, please spank Paypal. Thank you).
Ebay/Paypal is the model of what internet business should NOT be about. Their tech support is as aweful as it can get. They innovate very little, and hardly improve on their tools to make life for users easier.
No wonder their stocks are taking a hit. They don't even know how to run their own company right, how can anyone expect them to do the same with a totally different company?
eTrade SUCKS
Meanwhile eBay announced that they had struck a deal to buy Microsoft, WalMart and a US Mint. "We can now literally print our own money, plus we will have a near monopoly in both software and tangible retail goods", said eBay President Meg Whitman. Leery of the announcement, eBay's stock price dropped to only four cents per share. "I ain't gonna trust no dot com blip blip stock", said noted day trader Erwin Lapsey. "I lost my shirt on them, and they are all evil".
Microsoft President Steve Ballmer had only three words to say about the deal: "Developers! Developers! Developers!". The sweat running down his broad manly chest then shorted out the microphones, abruptly ending the press conferences. Meanwhile, deep inside Mum-Ra's lair, the lich formerly known as Sam Walton and current President-in-Secret wheezed his single word comment about the proposed merger: "...braaains...".
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
How am I going to get gouged for shipping if I can download skype for free???
Anyone who's used Paypal know how important "customer service" is to ebay
OK, I see the smiley, but I seriously wonder if eBay will just further bloat already bloated pages with voice mail.
"you've been outbid"
If you don't think their pages are fat, you've got a very fast connection. Those of us on 56K dialups get used to waiting a full minute to get to our My Ebay page. Whatever happened to less is more?
Then, it could be they're just buying it as an investment and will unload it later.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
that all of the smaller, currently free (beer and freedom) software packages that are worth a damn are being hoovered up by the larger, establioshed public companies. Google has sucked up quite a few, as has Yahoo. AVG anti-virus was just sucked up by Intel.
What gives? Can't something stay free AND not be afiliated with corporate glutiny?
In what world is Skype worth a multi-billion dollar value? The technology is not novel - anyone could build a "free" VOIP PC-PC service with premium bridges to the POTS infrastructure.
If I were a shareholder of one of these companies thinking about throwing BILLIONS as Skype, I'd make sure that I had a full study done of the cost to replicate ALL of the Skype infrastructure: Net cost: Millions. This is a horrible buy. Even if you consider "buying" Skype's customer base, the valuation per customer is absolutely abusrd.
The following trojaned PC is hosting a load balancer for a network of phishing sites:
http://65.162.56.73/
Spam is being sent out sending people to that IP, which in turn redirects to a network of 0wned PCs all across the US.
If you have resources, please DoS port 80 on that box.
Before I walked through the swanky glass doors in Redmond, Ballmer confronted me at the security desk. "Tell me it isn't Skype you fucker." "Yes, yes it's Skype." And I spit on the floor. Well, Ballmer went apeshit - screaming, hopping and started throwing chairs in the lobby! Security came and roughly escorted me from the building chiding me for "upsetting a great man". Who woulda thunk it!?
Now I can pay for all my VOIP calls with PayPal. Oh, wait ...
[Insert pithy quote here]
1) Buy company that offers an intersting service with reasonable fees.
2) Jack up fees until customers bail.
3) ??????
4) Profit!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
What do I see here? A formula. The main meaning is clear is direct... now let's play! let's change skype, google or any other meaning for a more free association (word), and play with the results. (not meh) The game is dangerous because it opens unconscious communication, and you must learn the controls... is this a gem lost ? ;)
Just for reference, Unlike every other large internet company, I am not interested in buying Skype.
You bought her a Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchise!!!
One of the nice things about Skype is the strong encryption. The American government is considering legislation to require backdoors in internet telephony. I've lost the link but I saw an interview with the CEO of Skype, asking how they would respond...the CEO simply said that as a company in Luxembourg, he was perfectly free to ignore American legislation, and intended to do so. EBay wouldn't have the same freedom.
Interesting story. Can you cite anything to back this up?
NOOOOOO
say it ain't so. NO. Please GOD NO. Not now that ebay=paypal=corrupt ass piece of shit.
Imagine the first paypal&skype marketing meeting going on right now. GOD NO!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Telecom - Death for all. The great dot-com boom, a pot full of lies filled and fuelled by companies like Enron, Bankers like Citigroup and other Wall Street associates, Optical Fiber innovators and greedy scientists like Gururaj Desh, Star Telecom Analysts like Jack Grubman together brought down the entire nations economy. Conservative and federal reserve guard, Greenspan had a hard time stearing it back to where we are. In the aftermath of Dot.Com bust, the Big 3 of Internet emerged, Yahoo, Ebay and AOL. Cisco, Sun, Amazon, MSN and others existed but their business models were not too consumer centric and they only tried hard to survive the growth. A new Stanford born baby was already conceiving and came to limelight in 2001. Yes you got it right, Google. With it's powerful Search technology it replaced AOL to join the Big 3. Google focused on web-services technologies, unveiled new model of business with its cool web based applications like search, gmail and google maps. It is always said that many of us have herd mentality. So when Google unveiled their Google Talk, the Redmond company which has already lost its focus announced the buy-out of Teleo (teleo.com). The telecom and VoIP bug has now bitten eBay. According to Bloomberg, it is willing to pay a whopping $3 Billion (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&s id=aLvNorCTFLZM&refer=us ). So is eBay willing to pay so much just for the subscribers it has? What about Yahoo/MSN integrated instant messaging and VoIP based services it offers?
These Telecom analysts are all set to ruin the recovery in the IT world, which came back in the real form of web-services. Don't forget, Skype is a big hype. Not every customer will pay you for the low quality service that Skype offers.
The entry cost for Skype like services are very low. Any company with a million dollar in its treasury and a good negotiator across the table can use much of open source tools and build such a service. Where are the customers? In my experience, between Google Talk and Yahoo!, the former got better customer rating because of the clarity compared with Yahoo!. But Google has 1/100th the number of users compared to Yahoo! and far more better features. So lesser the number of customers better the quality. I think the VoIP market will evolve as a fragmented market with at least 2 service providers for every small town and more than a dozen providers for large cities.
I only hope someone will save eBay from shelling out couple of billions for a useless services as this. I will not immediately jump to VoIP unless they come up to the quality of fixed line Telco's otherwise, I can never conduct my business with lost words in-between deals. Maybe eBay and Skype officials must negotiate using Skype VoIP to know what eBay is paying for and what Skype is offering.
Anyone else worried that Skype, if owned by Ebay, would be more likely to bend to the FCC's demands to allow federal wiretapping?
Typically big American corporations like Ebay play ball with the government, and one of Skype's most attractive features (IMO) is that they don't allow wiretapping (the data is encrypted end-to-end).
At turning a profit. Forget about serving the customer because nobody cares and it doesn't generate profits!
Is this so hard to understand?
Good service costs money and I don't know many americans who want to pay for good service. The ones that can pay more, generally do the low-ball price thing anyway.
Here's how it really goes.
Company A thinks acquiring Company B might be a good idea.
They look at the market value of Company B, and how much revenue Company B is expected to generate over x number of years, as well as how much synergistic value Companies A and B would have if they merged.
Company B looks to be a tremendous value, so Company A would do well to buy them out, right?
The problem is that Company B's shareholders are well aware of their value, and they are not going to be bought out on the cheap, particularly if they can find other suitors to make competing bids. And federal regulations require that acquisitions be announced to the public, so there's plenty of lead time for other companies to offer bids.
The amount that Company A has available to bid for Company B is determined by the estimated value of Company B, post-acquisition.
In these situations, almost all of the additional value that Company B would bring to Company A ends up going to Company B's shareholders in the bidding, and it becomes an almost break-even proposition for Company A. And many times it's even a losing proposition.
Therefore, Company A's stock price goes down, and Company B's stock goes up, regardless of what industry. Almost every time.
I've tried Skype on broadband. It's very good. The quality is actually better than telephone. With this and cell phones, I don't see why everyone pays the monthly telephone bill. I guess that and paying the newspaper subscription bill are kind of just stupid things people do.
No Sigs!
Ok what to say to this obvious troll.
1st Sherman Networks had nothing to do with Gator.
2nd the music industry is actually doing just fine.
3rd Napster was shut down, they did not "stop".
4th Gator is, as well as being annoying to all hell, not responsible for anyy indentity theft, or criminal action at all.
As for the rest, well since nothing prior to your skype comment had even the hint of truth I feel I can say the rest is also bullshit.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
and this clueless guy gets 3pts interesting?
1st I didnt say that, dont mess people and protocols with companies
2nd the music industry sales (mean CD sales) are declining due to MP3 spreading through Kazaa and likes
3rd Kazaa was NOT shut down, I was refering to Kazaa not Napster (that is another story)
4th You can hack to any computer through Kazaa & Gator you clueless noob. You are probably sitting behind your OS X, thinking you are safe. Knowing nothing about e-security, programming or internet trafficing.
LOL!! You've got to be the stupidest troll I've had the twisted pleasure of running across. You've debated nothing, and cite nothing as source. Please tell me more of this "internet trafficing"[sic] of which you speak.
Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
Just tell me this:
Where is the spyware in Skype?
What is the name of it?
Why don't ANY of the spy/malware scanners know about this?
What, pray tell, are you smoking?
OK? Do you think you can do that? Oh, and one more thing:
Can you point to a howto on "hack to[sic] any computer through Kazaa & Gator?" That would be greatly appreciated, as I'm having a bit of a "cash flow" problem these days. Of course, you (and everybody else apparently) already know that, since I have Skype installed!
[Carlos Mencia]Dee Dee Dee[/Carlos Mencia]
put the what in the where?
1st I didnt say that
Yes you did, You said 'Program named *cough* "Skype", is from people who wrote *cough* "Kazaa", *cough* "Gator" and other spyware ventures.'
and dont mess people and protocols with companies I am not sure what you mean by this.
2nd the music industry sales (mean CD sales) are declining due to MP3 spreading through Kazaa and likes
No again, CD sales are UP not down.
"The number of CDs and other music products shipped from record labels to retail merchants rose 2 percent last year, to 814 million units, the first annual increase in five years, according to the Recording Industry Association of America." - from News.com
3rd Kazaa was NOT shut down, I was refering to Kazaa not Napster (that is another story)
I said Napster, do you even read before you spout crap.
4th You can hack to any computer through Kazaa & Gator you clueless noob. You are probably sitting behind your OS X, thinking you are safe. Knowing nothing about e-security, programming or internet trafficing.
Actually right now XP. Taking my time installing a new PBX for a local company.
My resume includes network engineer for both BofA and Wells Fargo and Senior NT Admin for Pixar (yes they also use windows despite what everyone thinks) among others.
35 years on this planet and 10 of them have been behind a stupid little box.
Well I guess I have said enough.
Good evening sir and enjoy.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Skype has been owned by eBay for years. They've just kept it quiet and kept their feedback positive, and now they can drive the bid price way up by cross-bidding. Duh.
Ok, my bad english maybe spoiled that enough, so your nice (but wrong) points may seem sounder to the moderator.
Your resume makes you just a mere PC user not a person that has an edge in security things like hardcore-programmer that knows windows to the kernel level, fighting for living in the far east. Watching all that shit that is happening in this industry.
I am working for outsourced e-security company so I must know. We are at war here. You are the opposite, well fed with net-worth alone exciding worth of tenths of our souls here weighting on your so nice, but invalid points.
Maybe you rather ask Microsoft, Symantec, Nowell or other respectable company of what they think of Kazaas and alikes. I just pointed out that Skype was born as another Kazaa, of what they became now, as they acting "respectable" and "solid" company to appeal and approve those $$$ bids they got, thats another story.
Wish you good evening.
Surely, if the funds change hands as repayment of a loan, as one example, only the interest (if any) is taxed.
In the US, it all gets added into your annual gross adjusted income and gets taxed at whatever tax bracket that falls into.
So I won't say it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I think the idea is to use the combination of PayPal and Skype to create a vast network on internet "payphones" where you deposit money via PayPal to talk internationally for ten minutes.
Humor or insight? You decide!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Gizmo, anyone?
I am posting fairly late in this discussion but, as no-one else has made the following connection, I will put it forward.
The key here is not Ebay but PayPal and their recent repositioning.
Before I go any further, I should mention that I don't believe anyone is going to be paying 10 figures for Skype, that's just ridiculous. From what I've heard, their P2P network is completely unsustainable, with far too few supernodes. If anyone does buy Skype, they will probably do so for the brand and customer base but replace the existing network with a more centralised one.
Skype's brand isn't really such a great catch - it would be quickly superseded if someone offered even a marginally better service - all ownership of the Skype brand would provide is a small head start. Is that worth billions? I don't know but I suspect not.
As for Skype's existing customer base, they say they have 52 million users, which really means 52 million downloads. Of those, only 2 million have ever actually parted with cash to use the Skype-Out feature that allows you to make calls to regular phones.
Now, bear in mind that I am one of those two million - I forget what I paid, probably a $5 minimum charge, just to play with the service for a while, probably used up a dollar or so calling embassies in China for a laugh. In the space of one week I downloaded Skype twice, installing it on 2 different machines to see if I could call myself. I made a grand total of ONE free call to another Skype user, a guy in Canada who posted on the Skype forum, asking for someone to call him so that he could see if Skype worked. I then annoyed a lot of people in China and, having had my fun, abandoned whatever money I had left in my account and uninstalled Skype from both machines.
If I am at all typical of first wave adopters, their active userbase is far, far smaller but they won't publicly release that figure. Ebay, however, will be well aware of it and will negotiate accordingly.
As for paying customers, well, I'm not the only person who's willing to blow a few dollars to play with a shiny new toy but quickly bored by it. How many recurring customers do they have? And how much do you think they spend on average? And how big is Skype's margin on that?
Let's say they have 1 million active paying customers (nonsense, but what the Hell), each of those would have to be valued $100 to make Skype worth a billion. That is about twice the going value of a mobile phone customer. Ridiculous.
So, having established that Skype is worth far less than over-excited journalists would have us believe, let's presume that Skype is actually willing to sell for far, far less. Who, then, would be interested in buying?
Any of the big names could probably harness the initial hype of the sale to their benefit. Yahoo could certainly use the edge against Google and they've swallowed some pretty interesting companies lately in their quest to reinvent themselves. Google knows that and would probably like to take Skype out of Yahoo's reach, but, generally, they prefer to develop their own tech in-house.
Vodaphone could do something really smart with Skype, link their networks in a way that would really blow the other mobile providers out of the water but, from what I know of corporate decision-making, that might be a little too out-of-the-box for a non-Internet company.
Which brings us back to PayPal. Last week, they announced something fairly momentous that was missed by pretty much everyone. After years of holding back the whole idea of micro-payments, they finally decided to granularize their fee scale to make smaller transactions viable. Before, you had to pay 30c + 3% of every transaction, leaving you with 67c from a dollar sale. Now, they are willing to take 5c + 5% instead, leaving you with 90c. This is huge news because it makes viable
Personally, I don't see why Ebay would want Skype. Every time I use it, it clogs up my Comp's processing speed.
Skype's as sluggish as they come. Go with something lighter, like Google Talk. Hell, make your own, ebay!
There's this great invention called "The Paragraph". Use it.
I have to HTML encode it which I always forget.
...quite a difference.
I have read comments here and by commentators elsewhere, trying to find some ray of hope. I am now absolutely convinced that there is no synergy - none at all. But then isn't it typical? A company is small, grows fast, succeeds, profitable, goes public, become a whore at the mercy of the wall street, and tried to 'diversify'. Diversification is the worst thing a company can do - it loses focus. Paypal was the best acquisition that Ebay made - perfectly synergistic. Adding a chatroom, or a VoIP is easy these days if eBay wants to help their base - but not worth buying a company at this cost. Mark my words - it will either sell off, or shut down this operation 3 years after acquisition - if it happens.
There's a perfectly good word for "mercado" in English. It's "market". I don't know why people need to use other words for things that have clear equivalents in English. Ex:
salsa == sauce
mercado == market
fiesta == party
siesta == nap
Sorry this is just a pet peeve of mine.