Welcome!

Web 2.0 Authors: Susan Cormier, Maureen O'Gara, Roger Strukhoff, Peter Silva, Liz McMillan

Related Topics: Web 2.0, SOA & WOA

Web 2.0: Article

Skype & Facebook? Skype & Google?

Skype is having “strategic discussions” with other companies as competition builds against it in the market
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
May 6, 2011 07:45 AM EDT
Reads:
 521

Facebook is rumored to be quietly turning over the idea of buying Skype, whose potentially billion-dollar IPO was delayed into the second half after it got a new CEO from Cisco and after Skype voiced jitters over the legitimacy of its VP7 video compression/decompression IP it licensed from On2 Technology.

On2 subsequently went to Google, which - according to the tale Reuters tells - has independently had "early talks" with Skype about a possible joint venture. The joint venture idea has supposedly occurred to Facebook too, which "reached out to Skype" about it.

Reuters says a source said a Skype acquisition by Facebook could go down for $3 billion-$4 billion.

The only problem, of course, is neither of them has a provable business model.

Skype meanwhile is having "strategic discussions" with other companies as competition builds against it in the market. In the long run Skype CEO Tony Bates may decide doing a deal is a lot easier than going public.

eBay once overpaid $3 billion for Skype and came to rue the day.

Published May 6, 2011 – Reads 521
Copyright © 2011 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

Comments (0)

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.