I’m sure eBay was expecting big things from Skype when they acquired the communication company in September of 2005 for 2.6 billion. Unfortunately not much has come from it all and eBay is facing a dilemma of what to do. You know things aren’t going so well when there’s a management shake-up and the CEO and co-founder of Skype resigns. The Silicon Alley Insider went as far as saying “It’s Finally Official: eBay’s Skype has Bombed.”
With eBay’s purchase of Skype not quite going as planned, eBay has announced that they are taking a $1.4 billion dollar asset-impairment charge this quarter partially due to promised shareholder payouts that total 530 million. That’s a large chunk of money for eBay and some people are even recommending that eBay ditch Skype all together and sell it to someone who has the time and resources to make Skype profitable - perhaps a company that specializes in communication.
How’d you like to be the person at eBay who suggested that Skype was a good buy? I imagine they’re feeling pretty bad right now. This purchase never made much sense to me to begin with but eBay tried to integrate Skype into the eBay experience the best they could by giving sellers the option to let potential buyers contact them via Skype. Email has evolved so much because people can do it on their own time which is why most sellers chose not to use Skype.
I wouldn’t say that Skype has bombed completely, but it’s not lookin’ good…
Enjoyed the post? Subscribe to our feed to get a daily dose of CyberNet!
Related Posts:
- Skype Surpasses 10 Million Simultaneous Users
- eBay’s CEO Meg Whitman Says "See Ya!"
- eBay, Skype, and PayPal Connecting Together!
- Skype Introduces High Quality Video Calling
- Download The Newly Released Skype 2.5
Ouch that’s got to hurt…..
I’d say! I’m sure eBay expected to gain from Skype instead of losing…
Actually, one of the guys that helped conceive the Skype acquisition was Mike Reining, the founder of Blinklist.
http://www.mindvalley.com/
According to his own bio on the company website, :
“Prior to MindValley, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist and the $4.1 billion dollar acquisition of Skype.”
yeah, Mike, might want to take that OFF your resume.
Ha! That’s kinda funny. I agree… Mike, get that off your resume!