Disruptive Telephony

Back on Tuesday, the online news and blogs sites were buzzing insanely with the word that eBay was selling Skype. Somewhat bizarrely, Skype was also issuing a news release the same day about Skype For Asterisk now being available to all. As if that even remotely had a chance of being written about...

In the midst of all that, I was in transit to ITEXPO in Los Angeles where I was speaking and had no time to add my own commentary. So let me just point to some others. First, the "official" statements:

• eBay news release (Business Wire)
• Investor group news release (Reuters) - also direct from Silverlink
• Skype blog post by CEO Josh Silverman: A new chapter

There were obviously MANY blog posts written, but here were a few that caught my eye:

• Om Malik: "Who Invested How Much To Buy Skype"
• Jim Courtney: "17 Million Canadians Will Have an Interest in Skype’s Success"
• Phil Wolff: "Skype sale: 20 Things We Don't Know"

Phil also created a great chart based on Om's data:

From my perspective, the sale is a great step forward for Skype. The acquisition by eBay always seemed a bit odd and never seemed to fit quite right. Returning to a private and focused ownership will hopefully give the company a chance to focus and grow.

Despite any criticism I may make of Skype (primarily around their fractured product strategy), I'm a huge fan of Skype, a HEAVY user of Skype on a daily basis, a paying Skype customer (for inbound numbers and calling credits) and yes, I do write about them a good bit. They are a fun company to have around the industry... they have definitely disrupted the industry in so many ways... and it's definitely good to have them around to keep people thinking about what's possible. Plus, the product's just a great communication tool. So I am glad to see this news.

Now let's see how this "New Chapter" really does begin...

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