Skype Limited

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Skype Limited

Type	September 2005 - Present: Subsidiary of eBay
Founded	2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis
Headquarters	Luxembourg
Key people	Niklas Zennstrom, CEO & Chairman
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	Skype, VoIP client for multiple platforms
Revenue	Unknown (Not published)
Employees	200
Website	www.skype.com

Skype Limited is a Luxembourg based company developing and operating a well-known, popular VoIP computer telephony program. It has been purchased by eBay since it's foundation in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

1 Foundation
2 Take over by eBay
3 Products
4 Worldwide
5 Criticisms
6 External links

[edit] Foundation

Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, whose main intention was to develop a piece of software which would revolutionise telephone calls. Allowing users to speak to each other via computers promotes the use of the Voice over Internet protocol and the use of computers in the technologically advancing world. Users are able to talk for free, an incentive to future and present members.

[edit] Take over by eBay

The auction site eBay began talks with Skype in September 2005. [1] On 12th September 2005, it was announced that eBay would purchase Skype in a deal worth approximately USD$2.6bn, in up-front cash and eBay stock. The transfer of ownership began and eBay officially acquired Skype on 14th October 2005.

However, analysts were not impressed with eBay's move, saying: "I don't see a lot of point to eBay buying Skype" [2], or "If eBay were to make this sort of move it would basically be admitting that 'our core market is decelerating". At the time, eBay had been purchasing many companies in moves to boost its market position and increase its annual revenue. However, eBay stated that their intention was to implement Skype into their auction website to allow buyers and sellers to speak prior to bidding and to create a powerful internet environment. Speaking in 2005, eBay chief-executive Meg Whitman said: "Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community".

[edit] Products

Main Article: Skype

Skype Technologies released their first product, Skype, originally as a simple computer-to-computer, or computer-to-telephone program. Support for paid services such as SkypeOut, SkypeIn and receiving voicemail messages allows the company to generate its revenue as well as making local and international telephone calls easier to perform via your computer, sometimes cheaper than other company's rates for similar services.

[edit] Worldwide

Skype Limited has locations around the world including Europe, Asia and the United States. Its headquarters are in Luxembourg.

Skype is available in 27 languages and currently has 100 million worldwide users. [3]

[edit] Criticisms

Skype is closed source and has their own proprietary protocols. The success of GSM for instance, is due in part to the universally accepted and open source of that protocol. Currently, VoIP is a booming market and having a universal protocol is favourable. Opponents to Skype would rather see SIP, an open source protocol, be implemented instead of Skype's homegrown protocol.