I was reading the new ebay acquisition of skype. Skype just a 2 year old company with over 200 employees is founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis ( http://www.skype.com/company/founders.html ), the KaZaa guys.
Did eBay pay $2.6 billion (will pay close to $4.1 billion) for a software? Skype has more than 54 million users, a country in its own. EBay paid the price for the kingdom not for the application which helps you chat free.
Ebay paid $1.5 billion for paypal making this deal the biggest ever. EBay, which believes in creating a city everyday @80,000 new members per day.
Hope eBay keeps it free 🙂
I think companies like eBay have no choice except buy companies like Skype and companies like Skype have no choice except sellout to companies like eBay. Reason? Yahoo! has already matched Skype with its new version on Messenger. So why would the multitude of users shift to Skype? I have a Skype account myself, but after I upgraded to the new Yahoo! I don’t think I’ll continue with Skype very long. Why would I when I get email, a messenger services, internet radio, net telephony, photo sharing, a briefcase and a blog all with one account? Yahoo! is still ahead…. but also because it’s free.
Innovation and multiple services against a single account are the key. So it was inevitable rather than some profound strategy. Skype will be free as long as Yahoo! Messenger is free.
But the question is, was Skype the right acquisition for eBay? For Google, yes, but for an online reseller?
What is Skype?
Skype (pronounced to rhyme with ripe) is a peer-to-peer internet telephony (VoIP) network, founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of Kazaa. The network is provided by all combined users of the free desktop software application. Skype users can speak to other Skype users for free, call traditional telephone numbers for a fee (SkypeOut), receive calls from traditional phones (SkypeIn), and receive voicemail messages.
Just have a look at this timeline of Skype…
April 23 2003 – Skype.com and Skype.net domain names registered
August 29 2003 – First public beta version released
June 15 2004 – Beta release of version 0.98.0.28 with first support for SkypeOut. Credits by voucher only.
June 27 2004 – SkypeOut credits first available for purchase on Skype website.
July 27 2004 – Release of Version 1.0 for Windows
October 20 2004 – First time 1 million Skype users are online at once
February 14 2005 – First reached 2 million online
March 10 2005 – SkypeIn Public Beta starts
March 11 2005 – Skype press release reports 1 million Skype-out users and 29 million registered users
March 11 2005 – Software has been downloaded 84 million times and 5.98 billion talk minutes served
April 15 2005 – Downloaded more than 100 million times
May 18 2005 – Three million online at once
If we go with the facts of Skype’s timeline then i don’t think so that it was a bad deal from any angle…
By the way author is telling about the building of communities….. and Skpye is iteself a great community or country….
As author always says-
Anyone can compete with our product with a new product
Anyone can give better services than our service..
but
if we form an community..
nobody can beat us…..
[email protected]
http://www.rajeshrana.blogspot.com
http://www.aimk.blogspot.com
But the question is, was Skype the right acquisition for eBay?
I think it was a good buy as eBay group is a big group and they wanted to provide multiple services to their group. They do not want their members to get exposed to google talk, yahoo messenger talk, msn (they just bought a company like that). An exposure to google talk, yahoo messenger means exposure to their other services like froogle , yahoo shopping e.t.c.
Second advantage eBay just got bigger 54 million more user added to eBay group, an incentive to their seller.
You got to go bigger and bigger 🙂
That’s right
and
that’s how you can expand in this competitive world….
Bigger and bigger….
by not leaving a single space to expand competitor’s leg…