Congrats eBay: You Are The Winning Bidder!
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Written By Reprise Media | September 12, 2005 | Share This
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eBay has agreed to buy VOIP firm Skype Technologies for $2.6 billion dollars.
The official press release is here.
The deal will help eBay expand its business reach into relatively uncharted waters while allowing Skype access to eBay’s enormous customer base.
How will this work out? It’s a little early to say, but eBay will most likely be deploying Skype technology in some way that enables buyers and sellers to communicate more easily with one another.
Some analysts are not so sure of the plan, saying language issues will continue to be a problem (imagine a buyer asking a seller questions in a non-native language) and that a partnership (rather than a buy - at an exorbitant sum, we might add) would have been a better option for eBay.
Echoes of the PayPal purchase are being heard, though PayPal had a far more developed business model (and had already gone public) when eBay made the buy.
Ross Mayfield has some good commentary as does Greg Levine of Forbes.
Topics: Investment, M&A |