Ebay bought Skype for $2BILLION?
 

Am I'm reading this correctly? Ebay bought Skype for two billion dollars?

Why in the world would anyone spend $2 billion for a company that makes twenty-five million a year?

Nobody ever said rich people were smart. :)

That's just crazy, Now they will just jack up the ebay fees to cover this shitty buy. Don't get me wrong skype is not a bad buy it's the price that is crazy.

Well you can take that 2 billion out if that company makes 25 million a year, but that will take tooooooooooooooo damm long. Your right, you got a point!

2 Billion wowww u serious ????

god where is the ROI :1orglaugh

You guys really cant understand this?

Shitloads of $$...

well they have the money from all that paypal tax :1orglaugh

thats a LOT OF MONEY

I understand the buy, I just don't understand the price.

The ability to reach large masses of people is extremely valuable. ICQ was bought for an insane amount, Hotmail over $400 mil and neither makes a fraction of that amount. Get the eyeballs now and monetize it later...
WG

No, I can't understand it.

Skype has a 100 million users in four years. Give me a billion dollars. I'll have a team write a similar tool, with $975 million dollars left over. Spend the rest of the money on a massive marketing blitz.......

yeah you guys are right, ebay has no idea what they're doing. they could only be so lucky to be smart businessmen like you guys.

Please, GFY billionaire CEO's and VP's, please preach about how eBay make illogical financial decisions.

I'm not rich. Therefore I can't make brilliant business decisions.

If you can write a tool to get 100 million users, you'll get similiar buyout offers, seriously.
WG

Actually it's $2.6 billion to be exact. Ebay bought Skype in hopes of faciliating the communication between buyer and seller. Unfortunately, Ebay never implemented the idea and the transaction will go down as one of the worst purchases ever. Meg Whitman really fucked up this one big time. But, you got to hand it to Skype, who recently offered free calling to the US and Canada in advance of Vonage's IPO. The move worked, which is why Vonage opened up at 17 and is now trading at just under half of that at 8.48. The problem facing Skype now is the huge regulations being imposed on VOIP providers such as Calea and E911. Skype thought they could bypass the laws by operating outside the country but are they in for a big surprise...

I personally can't understand the price either, but they definitly know better then us.

ebay users will be required to sign up for skype to comunicate with each other so ebay can wright off fraud transactions.."well you talk to the guy"....

I'm researching it right now and I see a 4.2 billion $ figure for the buy

they are probably thinking 10 years in advance.

If you ever need a tax write off, ask google how they do it... I think that skype is owned by someone who works for google... wtf

Skype does not have 100 million users. They may have had that many downloads of their software, but their active user base is closer to 2 million. They have admitted to having 1.1 million Skype Out customers, but since they do not offer a recurring revenue model -- users buy "credits" -- there really isn't much of a valuation on those customers. If the Vonage IPO has taught us anything, consumers are not forgetting the bubble burst of 2000 when companies like pets.com were trading at 40x their net worth. People were fooled once...they will not give the time of day to companie that are not profitable.

:upsidedow

I just read about this in the new Newsweek I got in the mail today. It says they are using Skype on a limited basis for large ticket items, such as cars. Could have just changed Ebay to put up their phone number and saved them $2.6 billion.

One hundred million users is huge. However, if the company is only making $25mil in profit..... It's not worth that.

Note that Ebay (according to Newsweek) made $4.8 billion in profit in 2005.

because, maybe this company has potential, to be a good profit company in the future :))) :thumbsup

Dumbest purchase this decade. It's not just us "stupid" webmasters saying this either, it's virtually every business analyst and pundit in the world. It's old news at this point.

lots of people say this kind of this - AFTER THE FACT

Instead of trying to figure out why companies pay what they do, its better to figure out how to be the lucky one selling to them.

They are going to use Skype for Paypal support so they can more quickly inform their members why their accounts are locked and they are unable to access funds.

That happened awhile ago :/

yeah, that really justifies spending that much.

that's a damn lot of money!

...... damn!!! i'm not even going to think about it :D

welcome to the wonderful world of internet

there is the smartest answer to it all:winkwink:

wow thats a lot of money...
i wonder what would happened if we had to pay a fee for using icq.. would you still use it?

A Swede and a Dane owned the majority of the company when it was sold. I think there is a clause that they will get an additional billion if the company lives up to certain criteria within a couple of years.

VoIP is the future. Simple as that. It's picking up massively in Europe and around the world where the cost of each phone call is significantly higher than it is in the US.

Free phone calls with the option to go video. Why do you think Google has GoogleTalk and Yahoo is doing their messenger with voice thing? With internet fees and the prices of computer hardware going down, it is becoming increasingly easy for casual users to access and take advantage of this.

VoIP is the future. The US Gov't will eventually give in. All it takes is some green in the right pockets, and *poof*, it'll be just like that globalization deal that's stinging everyone in the west now.

i mean it sounds stupid, but you cant complain with ebays growth.

maybe ebay just imagine skype in the future

25 million a year? Where did you get that number? Looks like you missed a zero...

Estimated earnings for 2006 will be 200 million$. 10 years of revenue, and a GIGANTIC userbase (54 million) with loads of advertising space. Sounds like a great deal..

"Luxembourg-based Skype, founded in 2002 by Scandinavian entrepreneurs, offers free computer-to-computer voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls and low-cost connectivity between computer and landline or mobile phones. It is considered the market leader in nearly all of the 225 countries and independent territories where it does business, according to a company press release. The company expects revenue of $60 million this year and more than $200 million in 2006, a Skype representative confirmed Monday."

interesting move......

Interesting read:

http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/skype-acquired

Then one day eBay starting selling 5, 7 or 10 second voice ads which would be played before a caller is connected to every call they make. Advertisers would pay through the nose.

They can do automated touch tone auction payments for the people who "don't want to use their computers" for payments.

There is also a craigslist angle.

46......

jesus,thats really huge cash:)lol

I think it's a good deal :)

Smart people those guy from EBAY, they will increase their sales with Skype!