eBay can finally breathe a sigh of relief about its ill-fated Skype acquisition, now that Microsoft has bought the company for $8.5 billion. A back of the envelope calculation shows that eBay might have made a 40 percent profit on its Skype adventure. Here’s how. Read More »
Tech
Skype, the web’s telephone and video chat pioneer, has seen a lot since its inception eight years ago. But it’s real legacy is its people. The well-connected network of alums reads like a Silicon Valley who’s who. Read More »
Rovio, the Finnish company behind the hit Angry Birds game has raised $42 million in venture funding to grow the business into different directions. Investors in the company include Accel Partners, Atomico and Felicis Ventures. Angry Birds maker hopes to become a many-media brand. Read More »
The newest music subscription service to launch is Rdio, the creation of Skype and Kazaa founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Like some of its newly launched peers, it’s a well-designed service that’s satisfying to curious listeners, but how many people will pay for it? Read More »
Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis have raised a second fund at Atomico Ventures aimed at investing in early stage startups in Europe. With $165 million in its latest fund, I asked the two founders what Atomico wants to invest in next. Read More »
Skype, with its spinout from eBay complete and its legal troubles with founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis settled, is looking to the future, where it wants to become a ubiquitous real-time communications platform. And that means thinking about the next-generation Skype architecture and… Read More »
The ongoing legal scuffle between Skype, a division of eBay, and its founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, may soon see a resolution, according to someone familiar with the situation. The parties are in discussions to resolve the various issues. The talks are described to… Read More »
One thing is for sure: eBay, a disaster of an Internet company, really wants to rectify its megabillion-dollar mistake and get rid of Skype — even if it means taking a small haircut. But eBay CEO John Donahoe thinks the company is… Read More »
It was in a conversation with Skype CEO Josh Silverman last fall that I raised the question: When will eBay spin off the mammoth Internet calling service via a public offering? Of course, he didn’t answer the question. The answer to that question came today,… Read More »
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were in talks with private equity groups to raise about $1 billion and buy their Internet calling service back from eBay. They sold the company to eBay in 2006… Read More »
A few days after co-founder Niklas Zennstrom hosted a special party for Skypers, nearly 30 of them got the bad news: no more jobs. This is the latest in the ongoing soap opera-like saga of the Skype-eBay merger. Read More »
The exodus of senior management from eBay’s Skype division continues. Ten days after co-founder Niklas Zennstrom decided to say sayonara to the P2P telephony company, Michael Jackson, one of its early employees and VP of operations, has left the building. I had wondered why… Read More »
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