Skype Not Enough To Save eBay In China

from the shocking,-yes? dept

As you may recall, one of the big reasons given for eBay shelling out billions of dollars to buy Skype last year was that Skype was big in China and somehow (no one ever explained how), that would help get more people in China using eBay. Not surprisingly, that never happened. Rather, as many pointed out before the merger, China has been pretty proactive in blocking VoIP services and (more importantly) there's simply no reason to think that because you use Skype you'd be any more likely to use eBay. So, it should come as little surprise that eBay is shutting down their Chinese efforts, and handing control over to a local Chinese company they'll partner with going forward. So much for that plan.
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  • identicon
    Stu, 18 Dec 2006 @ 3:08pm

    Super success in any endeavor, combined with more money than they know what to do with breeds a kind of arrogance.

    Sort of "They don't have as much money as we do, so what could they know?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Dec 2006 @ 4:10pm

    One of those deals that make you say, "Hmmm, maybe I am smart enough to be a CEO. Actually, maybe I'm not a CEO because I'm TOO smart..."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    bob, 18 Dec 2006 @ 4:39pm

    haha. true. so true. and wow talk about when-billion-dollar-deals-go-bad.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    David Binkowski, 21 Dec 2006 @ 6:20pm

    I just picked up a "I'm Huge in China" t-shirt on Ebay for a steal :P

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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