Though there was no particular shortage of rumors surrounding possible bidders for Skype, including Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) and Facebook, and no shortage of rumors about possible targets for Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), those two lines of thought never really intersected. At least, not before Microsoft announced on May 10 that it was acquiring Skype in a deal worth a total of $8.5 billion. (For more, see A Primer On Investing In The Tech Industry.)
Skype Gets Another New Home
Despite being fairly good at attracting users and becoming a significant presence in overseas voice calls, Skype has had a hard time finding a permanent home. The company was bought by eBay (Nasdaq:EBAY) roughly two years after its founding, but never really lived up to eBay's hopes of it as a new growth platform beyond auction services. As a result, three years of ownership and a $1 billion-plus impairment later, eBay sold 70% of Skype to a private investor group.
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2 comments:
Most of the commentary I've seen on this acquisition has been negative. I tend to agree; it seems a big waste of shareholders' money to spend 8.5 billion to acquire a company which basically provides a FREE service, a company that the prior buyer was desperate to unload and could have been bought for about a third the price a short time ago. What Skype does have is a user base and technology. Perhaps MSFT has a vision to leverage and/or exploit those into some hugely successful product or service. I hope so. They really haven't had a new big winner for a long time. AAPL went thru a long dry spell before it came up with the iPod so I guess it's possible.
PI,
The big difference, in my opinion, is that Apple paid such a tiny amount of money to develop the iPod and the iPhone. They have been phenomenally efficient with their developments.
With MSFT, even if they can turn Skype into a killer M-VOIP player, that's still really damn expensive.
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