eBay Did Indeed Just Buy Skype.
eBay just bought Skype. For $4.1 billion!
Oh man. This is just so wrong. I thought the era of brainlessly overpriced companies has passed, but apparently that isn’t so.
How exactly are they going to justify this price? They can’t, it’s simply not possible.
The technology is not that special. There are lots of people working on comparable stuff, and lots of alternatives emerging already. Hello? Google Talk? Gizmo? Asterisk PBX? And all the rest.
Good, Skype has a large user base. But even if there is no real contender with a comparably stable and usable client right now, there will be. Pretty soon. It will be free, probably based on an open source infrastructure, and blow all attempts at making Skype a pay service (if that’s what they are attempting).
I don’t think that Skype is a company of no apparent value; I just think that this price is not justifiable. Not even the brand is worth that much.
Welcome to the next corporate Internet boom. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Om Malik has links. Good ones too.
