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Skype creators looking to buy it back from eBay

by Brad Linder on April 11, 2009 at 09:00 AM

A few years back online auction site eBay purchased Skype for about $3 billion. But the two companies have always seemed like an awkward fit. After all, while in theory it might make sense to integrate Skype's VoIP and chat technology into eBay's site to help facilitate auctions, the truth is that email works just fine for working out the kinks in most transactions. And eBay has never really done very much to integrate Skype with its other services.

Now the New York Times is reporting that Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are exploring the possibility of buying Skype back from eBay. It's not clear how much money they'll need to buy the company back, but it seems likely that eBay could let it go for significantly less than it paid for the service.

Tags: ebay, skype

Comments

richard.gaileyApr 11th 2009 7:46PM

Neutral

Good. ebay have started to ruin the app lately in respect of the removal of the SkypeMe status. In version 4x they removed it for some reason, which is a great pity as I have had some great conversations with people from different countries and walks of life.

Skype was a great tool for meeting new people, so to kill one of the ways to communicate seems a bit dumb.

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Roland Conrad SzigetiApr 12th 2009 8:49AM

Neutral

Why less than they paid for it? How can they buy it back for less

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Brad LinderApr 12th 2009 8:51AM

Neutral

Because eBay wrote off part of the purchase, and more importantly, hasn't really figured out what do with Skype over the last few years. There's a good chance they'd rather recoup some of their losses than continue struggling to figure out a way to make Skype more valuable to eBay's core services.

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