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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
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.
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.
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!
It's 'breast', not 'tit'.
"Ebay Inc. shares fell 4.3 percent."
You mean they're down to only "AAAAA++++++!!!111" now?
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
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!"
...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
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
It's criticizing, not criticising.
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.
Its not uncommon for a company with cash in the bank to buy up unrelated companies to diversify its holdings. Its much like an individual buying a mutual fund, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Companies like Microsoft do this all the time. They've bought all kinds of seemingly unrelated companies.
Additionally, it could provide a near-turnkey solution for better buyer/seller communication, which could be cool.
From a number of persepectives, it could happen. It just doesn't look like the market approves right now.
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).
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.
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.
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