Comments on: Skype: CEO Zennstrom Steps Down; Only 1/3 of Earnout Paid

By: D.I.A Free News Online 2008 » Techcrunch: Skype Reports 61% YOY Growth; All Quiet On Google Front

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:56:35 +0000

[...] report signifies that Skype is hanging in there despite the setbacks of last fall that involved CEO Niklas Zennstrom stepping down and earning only 1/3 [...]

By: Skype Reports 61% YOY Growth, All Quiet On Google Front

Skype Reports 61% YOY Growth, All Quiet On Google Front — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:37:47 +0000

[...] report signifies that Skype is hanging in there despite the setbacks of last fall that involved CEO Niklas Zennstrom stepping down and earning only 1/3 [...]

By: Digital Frontier | Køber Google Skype fra eBay?

Digital Frontier | Køber Google Skype fra eBay? — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:09:57 +0000

[...] 1,6 mia dollars. Købet blev dog vist aldrig helt den succes som eBay havde håbet på og i 2007 forlod de gamle stiftere og tidligere ejere eBay uden at have fået alle de yderligere 1,6 mia dollars. [...]

By: TechCrunch en français » Google/Skype, vers une acquisition ou un partenariat imminent?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:56:27 +0000

[...] un poids pour Ebay. Ce dernier a remplacé le CEO et co-fondateur de Skyoe, Niklas Zennstrom en October 2007, en raison d’une certaine frustration quant aux performances économiques de Skype. eBay a du [...]

By: eBay Launches Shopping Social Networks

eBay Launches Shopping Social Networks — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:42:30 +0000

[...] its recent Skype blowup, it’s good to see eBay focusing on what it knows best: [...]

By: What Was Skype’s Shortfall?

What Was Skype’s Shortfall? — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:27:01 +0000

[...] Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom stepped down earlier this month with only one-third of his payout from eBay, it was clear that Skype fell short [...]

By: Yahoo May Sell Kelkoo

Yahoo May Sell Kelkoo — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:37:09 +0000

[...] The admission that Kelkoo is not performing well for Yahoo follows the massive write-down of Skype by eBay, although comes at a time where Microsoft is buying in this [...]

By: Alex Linhares

Alex Linhares — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:40:14 +0000

Why hasn’t my comment been published?

By: Krixxr

Krixxr — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 06:40:46 +0000

Meg, could you please close the door! No, I mean from the outside, you also way overpaid for Paypal back then.

By: Moses Kagan

Moses Kagan — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:08:18 +0000

It was never clear why Skype was complementary to eBay’s core business, nor how Skype was going to monetize a widely-dispersed, highly price-sensitive audience. More analysis at moseskagan.com.

By: phenom

phenom — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:25:47 +0000

stepping down….
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:06:14 +0000

What happened to the click to call applications on eBay. Thouhgt that would have beeen a winner.

By: Alex Linhares

Alex Linhares — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:14:11 +0000

Where’s my comment?

By: Hitchhiker's Guide to 650

Hitchhiker's Guide to 650 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:04:46 +0000

eBay & Skype: Impairement Charges & The Like…

eBay took an “impairment” charge for the Skype acquisition today of $900M . . . its totally hilarious how people that do not really understand accounting & finance are interpreting this action.
First of all, here is a technical defi…

By: Don Jones

Don Jones — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:02:53 +0000

Maybe the Skype guys were too busy with their venture capital outfit, Atomico…

By: trevo

trevo — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:30:39 +0000

Guys guys, if eBay wanted a communication platform, they could’ve bought dozens of VOIP/Voice-Chat clients for a million or so.

The sole motivation for the deal is so that a public VC backed company can give a “liquidity event” to another VC backed company. Look at all these rich deals (see Google/YouTube). The acquirer and acquiree are almost always backed by the same group of VCs (Kleiner/Sequoia/Benchmark etc).

Its a shell game boys. Those of you “startup entrepreneurs” who aim to get acquired for billions better start buttering up to one of these VC’s. You scratch their back… (give them a shell startup to invest in), they scratch yours (you get a small slice of the pie once they unload your shell startup to the larger public company for Billions).

By: Fake Mark Zuckerberg

Fake Mark Zuckerberg — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:13:47 +0000

Seriously Fake Steve Balmer…..We will buy your company and turn it into a factory that makes the monkeys that clash the symbols

By: sriram

sriram — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:12:37 +0000

analyst Henry Blodget?

“In 2002, Eliot Spitzer published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget allegedly gave assessments about stocks, which conflicted with what was publishing publicly.[4] In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently banned from the securities industry for life.”

By: Rons Dixon

Rons Dixon — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:10:11 +0000

Olivier, you obviously missed the mark here, my question was rather rhetorical. And your assessment of the purchase is as close to the strategy as Mars is to Earth.

Two key factors .
Skype was considered the fast-growing company and reported it has 54 million subscribers and adds 150,000 users each day

One of the biggest complaints ebay was receiving from sellers was communication between sellers and buyers. They say this as a way to bridge the communication gap while at the same time capitalizing on (by charging for use of the) service. When you consider that ebay members were sending about 5 million messages each day in total. Do the math, even half of that was suppose to be converted to skype traffic.

My question was meant to spark whether or not ebay would have been better building the communication platform than buying skype. Had it worked out, we would be asking a different question now.

By: Randy Smythe

Randy Smythe — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:52:11 +0000

Zennstrom’s just taking the cash and moving over to Joost. They weren’t going to hit their earnout requirements so why not negotiate an exit. The Street already priced in the Skype debacle.

So now the “Power of Three” is pretty much down to PayPal. eBay Marketplaces are growing in single digits and Skype is underperforming. Thank God for PayPal.

By: John S

John S — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:45:47 +0000

This deal could have made sense (whether at that valuation, though, it’s tough to say), if eBay had actually looked at what they had at hand. Namely, had they packaged up Skype with PayPal and a white-label version of eBay, they’d have the perfect platform for small businesses. You could get a store front, settlement and even a call center for a low cost and from one provider.

The problem here was a lack of execution and imagination. I’m guessing it has to do with the way eBay is organized, but I’m strictly guessing there. Of course, nothing else explains the Yahoo! and Google click to call deals. Sounds like something AOL/TimeWarner would do.

By: Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:41:27 +0000

Say good night Skype!
It was nice but we have to see ya later.
Who are those guys carrying out your furniture?

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

By: Blogger

Blogger — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:27:30 +0000

With $530M payout guaranteed you wonder what motivations he had if any to make it happen at eBay. This would be a classic incentive vs objectives case study.

By: randy

randy — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:59:23 +0000

A spam-riddled auction site and a defunct IM clone? Not sure what people were expecting here.

By: Sig

Sig — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:52:23 +0000

Originally, they stated the purpose was to implement pay-per-call in Ebay listings, but then they announced a similar deals with Yahoo (domestically) and Google (non-U.S.).