Our folks in the UK pointed me to this article in the Guardian that suggests that eBay is quietly shopping Skype.
I have no idea if this is true or not, but you could see both sides of the story:
1. No way – it would be incredibly hard to backtrack on Skype after making such a big deal about it (even with the earn-out/write-down adjustments). Plus, heck it’s one of the fastest growing parts of eBay now.
2. yes way – eBay could have found that running this startup VOIP company that’s based out of the EU and not core has become just too much of a distraction from the day to day core business of selling stuff.
If you had a clean slate, it would make a lot more sense strategically for Skype to live with Google, it could be part of their new gPhone strategy, bring click-to-call to the masses, etc. within eBay Skype is being somewhat squandered and not realizing its full potential.
Readers what do you think: “no way” or “yes way”?
