eBay to sell Skype
8:47 PM in No Category by Marc Lequime
It was announced a couple of days ago that eBay have reached a deal with Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures (which originally invested in Skype) and private equity firm Silver Lake and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to sell 65% of the popular internet phone company Skype for a profit of approximately $2 million.
eBay, who have been trying to sell the voice-chat service since it announced earlier this year that it planned to spin off skype due to having “limited synergies” with it.
This deal values the Skype chat system at approx. $2.75bil, which is a much greater sum than eBay bought it for; purchasing it in 2005 for just $2.5bil.
Skype’s software is a revolutionary idea, similar to that of Windows Live Messenger’s Phone Call/Video Call function. However, it offers faster service, better quality and improved features such as group phone conversations. Unlike Live Messenger, Skype is completely based around the concept of free phone calls over the internet, instead of free internet chat (although skype still offers its own version of an internet chat).
Skype can be downloaded for free, just click here.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8231072.stm
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