eBay Finally Gives Up Looking For Mythical Skype Synergies
from the it's-all-over dept
When eBay first surprised plenty of folks by buying Skype in 2005, the company insisted that there were plenty of synergies between the two companies -- despite them being quite hard for anyone to see (and for eBay management to explain). They trotted out a couple of ideas that were easily shown to be false. All of this was finally confirmed last year when eBay wrote off much of the acquisition. Now, finally, eBay is admitting that there really are no synergies between the two, even though it apparently spent about two years trying desperately to find them. In talking about how Skype faltered after merging with eBay, Skype's latest General Manager admits that looking for synergies between the auction business and the VoIP business are a thing of the past: "There is less focus at eBay today on finding the place where eBay and Skype intersect on the web, on using mashups to create a new communications paradigm for eBay, and more focus on Skype growing its business and eBay growing its business." Why that only cost a few billion dollars to figure that out.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Stopped seeking synergy - Gee..
"looking for synergies between the auction business and the VoIP business are a thing of the past".
It's always a chuckle when a billion-dollar outfit puts a press release spin on old, tired news.. like a billion-dollar mistake ;-)
The Teamhttp://iserviceshop.blogspot.com
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oh
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Re:
Wow, they NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT. You're smart.
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Only a matter of time...
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Re:
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Sell Skype
I could see the Grandcentral system being sold to businesses and tied into their PBX systems. (Stand alone systems)
Skype and Grandcentral for small businesses, especially with 800 numbers also has some potential.
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Mike's pulling out of that nose dive
Let's see if we can't get this train wreck of poorly written articles and self evident "proofs" back on track.
C'mon man.
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Even academia treads the Skype acquisition as a pr
Researchers out of Emory University have traced the arguments for and against the Skype aquisition and packed them into two teaching cases. (Case A, Case B) . While the first case is fairly neutral, the follow up clearly points at Ebay's failure to integrate Skype and monetize on the cretated hype:
"eBay’s recent foray into social commerce by creating more social network communities around specific categories did not seem to directly involve the Skype application. But then again, maybe lowering expectations might be a good strategy this time around…"
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One Synergy, Maybe
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