Skype posts
FeedPosted Aug 30th 2010 1:30PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Cisco Systems (CSCO)

In some cases, an IPO filing is a clever way to try to sell the company. After all, the document provides a treasure trove of information for a prospective buyer. Besides, if the IPO is expected to be hot, the seller could have leverage on the valuation.
Well, according to a
report in TechCrunch, it looks like this scenario may be playing out with Skype. After filing for an IPO a few weeks ago, it appears that the company has received a bid from Cisco (
CSCO).
Continue reading Cisco Poised to Buy Skype?
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 1:00PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Rumors, Products and Services, eBay (EBAY)
eBay's (EBAY) purchase of Skype for over a billion dollars years ago was seen by many as obtuse and strange. Did eBay really expect its auction buyers and sellers to want to speak over the Internet (or video conference, for that matter)? Part of the allure of online auctions is the relative anonymity both sellers and buyers have. No "meeting in the parking lot" Cragislist-ish type of meetings in most cases.
But Skype has not paid off like eBay would have hoped. While the purchase of PayPal was the best acquisition eBay ever made, the planned synergies never materialized with Skype. While still a popular voice and video service around the world (ultra-cheap as well), Skype may be posed to bring voice and video calling direct to flat-panel television sets near you soon. The "videophone" concept has never really been that popular, mostly due to the kludgy ways past products have been designed and marketed.
Continue reading Ebay's Skype Coming to a Television Near You?
Posted Feb 16th 2010 4:40PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Verizon Communications (VZ)

In the third quarter of last year, Skype users accounted for a whopping 8% of global international calling minutes (which translates into 3.1 billion minutes across landlines and mobile phones). And expect the momentum to continue.
Today, Skype
announced a deal with Verizon Wireless (
VZ) -- which is the biggest U.S. carrier -- to seamlessly integrate its technologies on a variety of smartphones, such as the BlackBerry Storm 9530, Storm2 9550, DROID by Motorola and DROID ERIS by HTC. The partnership is expected to launch some time in March.
Continue reading Skype Scores a Deal with Verizon to Provide Cheap Calls
Posted Jan 2nd 2010 2:30PM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Private Equity, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP), Media World, Initial Public Offerings, Technology, Visa Inc. (V)
Continue reading Social IPO? Hype Accumulates for 2010 Offerings
Posted Nov 16th 2009 11:20AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), AT and T (T), iPhone, Technology
BT Group, which virtually owns the UK telecommunications market, isn't waiting for Google (GOOG) to launch a full attack. The company probably expects to be under assault from the search engine (and advertising and e-mail) giant, so it's taking early action. Google Voice is still being tested, but words like "free" and "powerful" and "internet-based" are bound to inspire fear in even the most established of companies.
To protect itself from the eventual attack from Mountain View, BT picked up Ribbit Mobile, and testing is in progress. Ribbit's technology has some overlap with Google Voice and even beats it with a few capabilities, according to Bloomberg. Ribbit just launched its beta product this month. It allows either the user's current phone number or a new one from Ribbit -- which is no different from Google's alternative. The product suite is generally the same, with phone- and web-based voicemail retrieval and automatic transcriptions that can be sent by text message or e-mail. For an extra fee, BT's Ribbit does provide human transcription, though it is free during testing. And, calls can be taken directly from a computer, using a microphone and speakers.
Continue reading BT and Google battle over the spoken word
Posted Nov 6th 2009 9:50AM by Guest blogger (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Silver Lake Partners, Private equity
This post was written by DailyFinance contributor Sam Gustin.
Memo to would-be Silicon Valley moguls: do not double-cross a pair of highly litigious billionaires.
After weeks of back-and-forth legal jousting, the tech heavyweights fighting over Skype are set to announce a deal in which the founders of the popular Web-calling service would regain a stake in the company they sold to eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) in 2005 for $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg. Nice trick.
The pact ends an at-times vicious soap opera replete with accusations of back-stabbing, dishonesty, and outright theft against Mike Volpi, the pair's one-time Golden Boy, who they believe double-crossed them. The legal circus held up eBay's proposed $2 billion sale of Skype to a consortium of private investors led by Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, the investment firm of Marc Andreessen, the billionaire co-founder of Netscape.
Continue reading Skype soap opera ends as founders set to regain stake ahead of $2B sale
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 8:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Internet, Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Technology
Online auction giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), a business that counts Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) as related companies, was not popular in Wednesday's after-hours session. The third-quarter report just didn't do it for Wall Street, so Wall Street decided to make some trouble and bring the per-share price of the stock down by 4.5%. Oh sure, the company beat earnings by the most famous amount there is -- the proverbial penny -- but, according to this Bloomberg piece, guidance was not so inspiring.
The top line was actually pretty cool. Net sales saw an increase of 6%. Unfortunately, the bottom line couldn't take advantage of such growth. On an adjusted basis, net income dropped 16% to 38 cents per diluted share. And, as I just said, that was one penny ahead of the analysts.
Continue reading eBay sees declines in profit and operating margin in Q3
Posted Sep 18th 2009 2:30PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: eBay (EBAY), Private Equity

Attorneys must love the founders of Skype -- Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who filed yet another lawsuit. This
one is against the former CEO of Joost, Mike Volpi, as well as Index Ventures. The claim is that the defendants breached their fiduciary responsibilities to Joost by brokering the $1.9 billion buyout of Skype, which is currently owned by
eBay (NASDAQ:
EBAY). One of the investors in the proposed deal is Index Ventures (and Volpi recently became a partner of the firm).
Keep in mind that on Wednesday, the Skype founders filed a lawsuit -- against eBay, Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board -- for copyright infringement. They believe that their company, Joltid, owns key intellectual property for the Skype platform and that eBay is in violation of the terms.
Continue reading Skype's founders go nuclear on the $1.8 billion buyout
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