Cross Your Fingers: Zennstrom and Friis Might Buy Back Skype From eBay
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, are trying to pile up enough cash from investors and their own bank accounts to buy the company back from eBay, according to an admirable scoop of a report by Brad Stone at the New York Times today.
Zennstrom and Friis sold Skype to eBay for roughly $3 billion in 2005 but no one was quite sure why. The remaining Skype team has done a fair job continuing to innovate inside the much slower moving eBay, but we've got our fingers crossed: a buy-back by the founders would likely put innovation in the driver's seat again at Skype.
When the original sale was made, everyone waited to find out about some ingenious integration of the two companies. Some said the technology would enable interested buyers to call sellers online on eBay but that hardly seemed worth billions. In fact the integration never came. Skype caught fire, growing 8X since the acquisition, bringing in $500 million a year in revenue and even getting a regular spot on the Oprah show and other mainstream media. According to Stone's write-up, there are now 400 million Skype users - that's twice as big as Facebook. In fact we wrote last month that Skype might be the biggest winner of the web 2.0 era.
It's not been a happy marriage, though. Ebay has suffered an existential crisis, technology integration never came and now a patent fight over the core P2P technology that Skype's inventors retained rights over is going to court. If the details of all the fighting is of interest, that's one more reason to read the Times's reporting on this. What we're interested in is what this could mean for the technology of Skype.
Let's See What They've Got, Again
We want to see Zennstrom and Friis put on the Skype jerseys again and crank one out of the park. The two have been P2P geniuses since the start, they just got some failure out of their systems with Joost and we want to see what they'll do next with a technology we and millions of other people around the world use every day.
Get Skype out of the stuffy old confines of eBay and back in the action! We'd love to see a really strong Skype voice app for Nokia and iPhones that kicks the overstuffed carriers right were it hurts - the time is right now or soon. How about an enlivened developer platform? Those are hipper now than they were when Skype was born! We'd also love to see some enhanced security so people in repressive regimes can use it again without worrying that a back door is going to let them be spied on as the Chinese government has been, for example.
The possibilities are many and we hope that Zennstrom and Friis can do what it takes to retake the wheel. Good luck gathering those billions, guys, a Skype buyback is an exciting thing to think about.
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This is a good news. I don't like eBay.
Posted by: Goofy2
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April 10, 2009 5:36 PM
I believe you meant the "Oprah" show?
I hope they can re-acquire the company - smaller companies are generally more nimble and efficient, which could really help Skype at this point.
Ebay should figure out how to run some of its properties with less integration.
Is the peer-to-peer aspect of Skype really necessary? It obviously was for Kazaa but only to get around the legalities. It doesn't seem as useful for Skype or Joost.
This is good. I think the real founders of Skype would definitely manage it best.
according to an admirable scoop of a report by Brad Stone at the New York Times today.
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
Measures taken by China
to combat the global economic crisis are beginning to show results, state media Saturday quoted Premier Wen
Jiabao as saying, ahead of first quarter results due next week.
"The economic indicators for the first quarter will be published next week but I can tell you that the measures we have taken are beginning to show their first results," Wen said at a meeting with the Chinese community in Thailand, according to the China News Agency.
In a video recording of Wen's address, released on the website of Hong Kong's Phoenix TV, Wen said that investment flows and demand had increased. He did not give precise figures.
"The difficult situation that some sectors and businesses were in is beginning to change... credits and loans are increasing rapidly," he added.
"The economic situation is starting to change in a positive way, the situation is better than we had expected."
Chinese authorities in November unveiled an unprecedented four trillion yuan (455-billion-dollar) stimulus package to combat the crisis.
Hey Skype, Android and the 700mHz spectrum want to do a threesome with you.
"...The 700 MHz spectrum, currently owned by broadcasters, has been used for analog television. But it is set to be turned over to the government in 2009. Due to its broadcast-attractive physics (like its ability to penetrate walls), this spectrum is desirable for both broadband communications in general and public-safety uses in particular.
The FCC has described the 700 MHz as beachfront property, and has talked up the broadband capabilities of this spectrum swath. About 60 MHz of the former UHF (TV) spectrum is going to be reclaimed by the U.S. government and will be reallocated for public safety and commercial broadband networks. The TV channels using this spectrum are going to go dark on Feb. 19, 2009, if all continues as planned."
http://gigaom.com/2007/03/14/700mhz-explained/
Let's hope Janus and Niklas succeed! When they sold the company the real spirit died. A new initiative to refresh the development community would probably work, like in the old days.
It's weird but Skype is probably the only desktop application that i still use every day. Ebay has never been a match although they added some innovations.
Come on Niklas, do it and bring a few parts of Skype to the web (web services to track calls, account balance, skype credits etc.)!
Bless!
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
BAD BANKEN
Bundesfinanzminister Peer Steinbrück (SPD) will faule Wertpapiere von Geldinstituten in sogenannte Bad Banks auslagern und diese durch Steuergelder absichern. Er habe einen Plan zur Errichtung mehrerer Bad Banks vorgelegt, den Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) bereits kenne, bestätigte Steinbrück der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung.
Nach Ostern werde die Bundesregierung sein Konzept beraten. Am 21. April werden mehrere Kabinettsmitglieder mit Vertretern des Sonderfonds für Finanzmarktstabilisierung (SoFFin) und der Bundesbank zusammenkommen, um die Auslagerung fauler Wertpapiere zu erörtern. Die Union zeigte sich zufrieden damit, dass in die Debatte um Bad Banks Bewegung gekommen ist.
Steinbrück machte erneut deutlich, dass er gegen eine gemeinsame Bad Bank für den gesamten Bankensektor ist. "Ich lehne definitiv eine zentrale Bad Bank ab." Stattdessen sollten sich die betroffenen Banken in einen guten und in einen schlechten Teil aufspalten. Hier will der Minister offenbar wiederum zwischen toxischen (vergifteten) und momentan illiquiden Papieren unterscheiden.
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
CRISE OIL
Die Internationale Energieagentur (IEA) hat ihre Prognose für die weltweite Ölnachfrage wegen der Wirtschaftskrise erneut um eine Million Fass (je 159 Liter) pro Tag gesenkt. Die Nachfrage werde im laufenden Jahr mit 83,4 Millionen Fass pro Tag um 2,4 Millionen niedriger sein als 2008.
Das schreibt die IEA in ihrem jetzt veröffentlichten Ölmarktbericht. Erstmals seit vier Monaten hat der Ölpreis Anfang April die Marke von 50 Dollar je Fass wieder überschritten. Die IEA erwartet aber wegen der Nachfrageschwäche keine nachhaltige Preissteigerung.
Die Tagesproduktion sank im März um 400 000 auf 83,4 Millionen Fass. Gleichzeitig wachsen die Ölvorräte. Im Februar hatten die westlichen Industriestaaten mit 2,74 Milliarden Fass rund 7,2 Prozent mehr Öl auf Lager als ein Jahr zuvor, weil in Asien stark gebunkert wurde.
I would like to know where can I buy skype credit by cash in Thailand,