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Skype Founders Seek to Buy Service Back From EBay
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- peter123 18y agoanybody remember webshots.com? They sold the company twice, coz they bought it back from excite when it went under.
- dcurtis 18y agoActually they sold it three times. First to Excite@Home, then CNET, then American Greetings.
- fallentimes 18y agoExcite@Home also paid $780 million for Blue Mountain.com then sold it to American Greetings for $35 million.
- ShabbyDoo 18y agoIt was sold three times. AG bought it from CNET -- the founders had nothing to do with that. Founders buying back companies for pennies on the dollar is surprisingly common. There's a 300-ish person consultancy in Cleveland with such a history . The founder cashed out twice.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoSkype is a company that should go public. Imagine Skype integrating a money transfer layer into its application. I would also think it is one of the biggest social network platform that has yet to be milked.
- tjmc 18y agoAgreed. Personally, I'm surprised that no electronics manufacturer has built wifi and Skype into a video camera yet.
- avner 18y agoIts got mostly to do with their closed platform. However, recently they have started opening up things (i.e. their codecs). Skype has established a phenomenal brand image that is under-utilized right now because its still chained to the computer. Nonetheless, Developments like the iphone app are a breath of fresh air and shows their strategy of truly mobilizing the app.
- riffic 18y agoAgree, they should tear down the walled garden, and implement a new version of skype interoperable with something such as xmpp/jingle.
- zandorg 18y agoI guess they said "Holy cow, we started a phone company with zero overheads and sold it for less than Verizon!"