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EBay Sells Skype To Marc Andreessen
Julefrokost writes "Computerworld has a story about eBay selling Skype. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, along with a group of investors, are reported to have paid $2 billion for Skype. According to the New York Times, Google was also a potential buyer. Also, the original founders of Skype are said to have placed a bid, but Marc Andreessen & Co was the highest bidder."
I hope the new owners make it better and re-incorporate the functionality it had before.
I really miss Skypecasts, it was a really useful tool for practicing languages and having informal meetings (moderation, talk turns, etc)...
Just today I spent about an hour looking for a skypecast alternative where I could practice my German with others (maybe first only hearing and talking a bit later).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Is Skype really worth half the value of Marvel? Disney got an amazing deal...
Considering the continuing legal troubles, I'm surprised they found a buyer. That's why Google purportedly backed out of negotiations to buy them some time back.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I wonder if there was a "Skype" item on sale in eBay...
Google must have hit a "speed bump". :)
This would be an interesting insight if weren't for the fact it's already been sold before.
Yet another free service gets snapped up for billions, in the hopes that it will somehow generate more than the expended value in ad revenue. Either that or some other magical source of cash influx that will not be spent by its users who are used to getting it free and will jump ship if subscription models become mandatory.
It seems a lot of people still believe that when the internet is involved, tried and true business rules and plain old common sense do not apply. Is the black magic of the interwebs not dead yet?
Last i checked, Skype was ad-free and financed itself through charging for connections to "real" phones and for national phone numbers.
You have no clue what you are writing about.
Poor google, I guess they didn't notice that there was a buy it now option.
The interesting thing about this deal is that eBay actually bought Skype from the founders for 3.1 billion US dollars. They are now selling for 2 billion which makes you think about the huge loss and the extremely bad deal they made in buying in the first place. When eBay bought Skype it was seen by many as the worst IT business deal, ever!
Is there a Windows port?
Sure, http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Windows_Users
I pay for SkypeIN and SkypeOut. It's a great deal. Unlimited Skype to Skype and 10,000 minutes per month to and from land lines. I have a real local phone number which displays on peoples caller ID if I so desire. Prices vary by locality, so check. It's about the same yearly as many people pay monthly for their cellular plan.
I have incoming calls redirect to my cellphone and office phone after so many seconds. You can load Skype up on your Windows Mobile, iPhone, and iPod touch with the Apple microphone headphones. While this is in no way a cell phone replacement, it's free minutes if you are near a good WIFI and need to place an outgoing call. There are physical wireless Skype Phones, but the quality is not near the level of a cell phone yet.
You can run Skype on many PC's at the same time and answer on which ever one you are sitting at. I have an ASUS EEE BOX PC at home wall mounted as an IPCCTV server, also running Skype. It's also running on my Laptop at work at the moment. My wife and I often video chat through Skype instead of using our phones. The audio is better quality than what my cellular provider offers.
Hopefully more people will see the benefits of the paid services and Skype will continue.
As Skype's money seem to be made only on pc-to-phone calls, I hope they'll open their protocol to other clients and just act as a sort of SIP-to-phone platform. If users can connect from other clients, that could be a win.
I did the same thing, purchasing a Linksys SPA-2200 and connecting it to a Canadian SIP provider (Acanac). That's after purchasing a crappy Skype USB phone. The difference is astounding and it's a dirt cheap, full replacement for a landline. I even use ekiga on a netbook when I wan't a "portable" phone line. And if Acanac ever raised their price, I can easily switch to a different provider and use the same box.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Considering how small Andreessen Horowitz fund is compared to the $2 billion price tag, it's incredibly misleading to say Skype is sold to Marc Andreessen. He gets a tiny slice of it, the big private equity firms is where Skype was sold to. And they'll be looking to sell it further.
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For those who had all but given up on Skype in Linux, they just released a new Linux client beta version in the last few days or so. Finally there are changes afoot...
The fact that the "underlying P2P" technology was not property of Skype made me wonder about the possibility of the technology owners enabling eavesdropping mechanisms behind closed doors..
Sometimes it takes a very long time for the penny to drop. Ah, I'm getting old.
Could it possibly be that a *much* larger organisation than the Hollywood studios is actually behind the drive to quash P2P technology universally?
Follow the money, they say. Now... it's not a question of who would benefit most, but who would lose the most if P2P was allowed to roam free?
Next question - Who is shaping down P2P network traffic without telling us? The ISP's? And they're owned by...
The Telcos. Yep, all of them. Chargeable point to point telecommunications are under threat, copper and cell both - people are still charged by the call, not by the TCP/IP connection. It's bread and butter.
Telcos have the most to fear by the proliferation of Skype, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak et.al...
I know correlation isn't causation, but it sure as hell draws your eye. Big question here: are the Telcos, behind the odd blind financing dodges, actually bankrolling the fight against P2P technologies?
Think ... SCO epic to kill Linux; beyond the obvious threat to Microsoft, the comms are a bit too "open" to make the telcos really comfortable. The RIAA - yes, we know the record companies are bringing suit, and we know what they're like, but isn't P2P technology an enabler of free phone calls?
I know this is tinfoil hat stuff, but I also consider that people who make it to the strategy-deciding levels at communications firms do know a bit about communications strategies. P2P is aimed squarely at their wallets. If I were a bastard in their position it's what I'd do. And in the aggregate, I think they outweigh Microsoft and all the record companies too, no?
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