Is Skype Shopping Itself Around?
from the welcome-to-the-voip-flea-market dept
The already high level of Skhype has only increased since Robert Cringely made the unsourced assertion that News. Corp "almost" bought the company for $3 billion. Now, Om Malik has done some checking up, and found out that Skype has hired an investment bank to screen potential buyers, but also that it tried to sell itself to Yahoo for $1 billion -- which happens to be the minimum price a Skype VC said he'd consider accepting for it. Om says Yahoo balked at the pricetag, then presumably went and bought the much less hyped Dialpad instead. Yahoo's also launched the latest version of its IM software with more VOIP services, though at this point it's using Net2Phone for outbound calls rather than Dialpad. In any case, it highlights how things are only going to get harder for Skype as more competitors jump into its field -- and as established telcos fight back against its influence. Some people are justifying these unrealistic valuations of Skype on its strength as a "disruptive technology" and the belief it's got no rivals or technical challenges to overcome -- two assumptions that just aren't true.
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