

Skype Files $100M IPO - ukdm
http://www.streetinsider.com/IPOs/Skype+Files+$100M+IPO/5876345.html

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AlexMuir
Skype seems to have been static for the last few years. Which is surprising
because 'skyping' is as much an everyday word for web-calling as 'googling' is
for search. It's been under appreciated.

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AgentConundrum
I've never heard anyone use the word "skyping."

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AlexMuir
Let's Skype, Skype me

Very common for me.

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mikeryan
In particular I use this when dealing with European clients/international
calls. "Skyping" is a pretty common alternative to "calling".

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relix
With earnings of about $500 million in the first half of 2010, and 44% growth
since last year, isn't a $100M IPO really, really conservative?

Does this mean the stocks will jump sky high the second it's on the market?

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jonknee
_Revenue_ of $400m in the first half of 2010, that's a huge difference. Their
net income was $13m.

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ojbyrne
Even worse, on techcrunch it says that most of that is from interest income
(they must have a lot of cash in the bank). Cash from operations for the same
time period is only $1.4 million.

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niccolop
Well this isn't a surprise!

Good for them and all their investors, I think it's one of the most useful
tools to have been created in the last 10 years.

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theDoug
It's a shame they're doing this a decade later than they should have.

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jacquesm
Well, not really, considering that Friis and Zennstrom sold it to ebay at a
very high valuation and then managed to get paid again when they found out
they missed a bunch of core tech.

If they had ipo'd a decade earlier they might not have made as much as they
did.

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riffic
these guys are some of the biggest crooks out there. fuck em

investors, I wouldn't go anywhere near this stock. you'll get burned.

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rdl
I think it's more that the people on the eBay side were either morons or in
breach of their own fiduciary duty to eBay shareholders. The deal terms were
voluntarily accepted by eBay; terms which were insane. Plus of course the
total lack of any strategic value for eBay. It was the worst tech M&A of its
size.

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shalmanese
See <http://www.quora.com/Why-did-eBay-buy-Skype>

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riffic
it's a shame this service based on a proprietary protocol gained critical mass
before a interoperable open standard could have taken its place.

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wensing
Unless you enjoyed all the years of usage instead of waiting for a
interoperable open standard. :-)

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riffic
Waiting? Open standards exist, already, today.

SIP, STUN, RTP, XMPP, Jingle, all these are recognizable open protocols.
Skype, if they were truly interested in not being a walled-garden, would have
either built or migrated to a network based on these.

Skype will be dead in 10 years if Apple makes good on their promise to keep
Facetime open.

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baby
facetime on windows though ?

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Tichy
If you are willing to install QuickTime, iTunes, Safari, Bonjour and so on
along with it...

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kogus
Anybody know what technologies / languages they've used to build Skype?

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MC27
C++ as far as I know. Skype has its roots in Kazaa's file sharing technology,
they use a proprietary P2P network to get around routers and firewalls -
something that VOIP services lack. It also does direct high quality
connections where available.

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sunny_s
what do you mean exactly by getting around routers and firewall? I've been
working with freeswitch and NAT is really a no brainer if you have a UPnP
router. Firewalls? Does skype get around firewalls that are explicitly
configured to block it? As far as 'direct high quality connections' are
concerned, even freeswitch does that, it only does the SIP signalling and lets
the media stream exchange directly between the endpoints, given that both can
see each other directlly (no NAT in between).

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wmf
_NAT is really a no brainer if you have a UPnP router_

Skype does much better than that. AFAIK they can traverse NATs and firewalls
that don't support UPnP; they can fall back to TCP if UDP doesn't work; if all
else fails they have a network of supernodes to relay traffic.

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sunny_s
I just mentioned a UPnP router because I think most home routers I see here
given buy ISPs support it. There are other ways as well, and yes that includes
falling back to TCP if UDP doesn't work.

I'm just saying that everything skype does can be done with OSS using open
standards. That skype is in any way technologically superior is mostly result
of excessive FUD campaigns IMHO. :)

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elai
Skype has a big 'it just works' factor. With most sip and other products you
had to deal with arcane stun server setup, and other configuration that would
confuse most people. And on top of that the quality was significantly better
than other options at the time such as msn and others. The combination of
higher voip quality, ease of use, and no tech wizardry required (and a lot of
marketing after they got rid of the tech hindrances) it went off.

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MC27
Indeed. Whenever I looked in magazines targeted at casual internet users over
the past decade, Skype was always the service recommended as "VOIP". It works
through practically any network problem, which makes it ideal for hotels and
from use inside corporate networks.

The quality is high, it's highly accessible and it doesn't have an equal
competitor. Even the instant messaging services that do voice and video are
poor alternatives. It has also been used for several years by feature phones
and smart phones - some as their main selling point.

Essentially, its a pseudo standard used by most people.

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sunny_s
Yes, i totally agree with all of that. They had a huge 'first mover'
advantage. Just that there's no tech-wizardry involved in there closed
protocol.

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gorog
They're just relocating/centralizing their headquarters in Luxembourg. The IPO
is from their Luxembourg office on their US office. Not a big deal.

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alttab
Except look at all of the American Capital investment firms that were in on
the offering - Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch.

Putting the good 'ol American dollar in good investment overseas. I'm happy
for Skype, but this act doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

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shadowfox
> this act doesn't exactly inspire confidence

Why exactly?

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mkramlich
Skype has become for VOIP as Google is to web search.

It may not be perfect but it's pretty darn good and it Just Works. It is
almost ubiquitous and the company name has become a verb for a large segment
of the popultion. "Let's Skype!"

