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eBay To Buy Skype For $2.6 Billion
rfunches writes "It's not a rumour anymore. BBC News online reports that eBay will pay 'half the amount in cash and the other half in stocks to create an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine'." The $2.6 billion purchase would give eBay access to the VoIP market, of which Skype claims it has 2 million users online at any given time. BBC speculates that eBay will use Skype to allow sellers and bidders to communicate via voice; I have also heard that live auctions a la Sothebys might also be a possibility. Also reported at Wall Street Journal (registration), New York Times."
they haven't bought the users, they've bought the name skype. how many times in the past year have you heard (not read) people using that name, and how great it is? i don't spend a lot of time with computer people, and everywhere it's skype-this, skype-that. 2.6 billion isn't that much for the kind of growth this business will see. last year skype made 7 million dollars. next two years it's projected at 60 and 200 million. 150000 new users daily.
It's only free if you do Skype to Skype calling or call 800 numbers.
It's about 2 cents a minute for outbound calls in the US. This is called SkypeOut.
And in order to get an real phone number, you have to pay for SkypeIn, which looks like it is going to cost about $60 a year, though its still in beta.
So, if you make 500 minutes of calls, its slightly more expensive than the Vonage SoftPhone.
If they made it a flat rate for unlimited calls, I'd buy it in a second.
This is not about integrating VOIP into eBay's auction business. It's about large tech companies scrambling to get a share of the predicted-to-boom VOIP market.
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Just recently, Microsoft purchased Teleo, which will allow MSN messenger users to make PC-to-Phone calls. Yahoo purchased Dialpad, which has similar capabilities to Skype (PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone). And of course Google introduced Google talk, which is the first step in the process. eBay just doesn't want to be left out.
This is not really my insight. See for example:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d1218d8c-2097-11da-81ef-
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
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