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eBay To Buy Skype For $2.6 Billion

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-lot-of-voice-communicating dept.

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."

3 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. over $1000/user by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How are they going to earn that back from a "free" VoIP service?

  2. Re:Paypal by DenDave · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hrrmm. would they transfer my skypeout balance to my paypal?

    LOL!

    It's good to see that hot air still sells, dang this is almost like the heady days 97-98!!

    2.6 Billion dollars for what? A client list? A gateway to copper lines?

    Sheesh!

    --
    -if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
  3. Re:Here we go again by afabbro · · Score: 5, Interesting
    He's right - this is a pretty sketchy idea. I polled my MBA classmates and every one of them was saying WTF.

    You want examples? The whole "diworsification" trend of the 70s and 80s. GM bought a satellite company (Hughes) and a data processing firm (EDS), for instance. See how well that worked out for them. The idea was that they'd use these businesses to ride out the slumps in the economic cycle...in reality, all it did was divert management's attention from their core business.

    All of the derived wisdom in business is that you find what your company is great at and put everything behind it. Read Good to Great.

    eBay buying Paypal makes sense because there are obvious synergies - you buy something on eBay and pay for it with Paypal (and Paypal was also profitable). Sometimes big acquisitions make sense - Oracle buying Peoplesoft and Seibel, or Ford buying Hertz (though after 15+ years they're now ditching it). Sometimes the deals are more of a stretch...e.g., FedEx/Kinko's and UPS/Mailboxes are both based on a very specific strategy and set of assumptions.

    eBay buying Skype makes zero sense to me. If eBay had bought Christie's or Sotheby's, I might understand...but buying Skype is (a) reaching waaaay over to a completely different market where the synergies are very speculative, and (b) investing in an unproven, unprofitable venture with a LOT of cash, reminiscent of the dot-com days.

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    Advice: on VPS providers