
Hey, eBay Actually Did Ok With Skype  - rms
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/hey-ebay-actually-did-ok-with-skype/
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netsp
The thing with Skype is the lost potential.

Skype has been happily sitting on all those PCs for so long at the centre of
the so-called virtual office. I recently updated my skype & noticed the screen
sharing, which for me makes it far more useful then go-to-meeting. The should
have eaten that lunch years ago.

The skype phones should have been a game changer. Something to makes phone
companies sweat.

------
pclark
where "ok" is having ~half your money returned after four years.

~~~
btilly
You didn't do the math.

The announced deal was $4.1 billion. They actually paid a billion less than
that because a billion dollars of performance payout wasn't paid. They
realized $324 million in revenue. The value of what's left is $2.8 billion in
2005 dollars. They just sold it for $2.75 billion. That's a wash.

The return on the deal gets even better when you note that they paid for a lot
of it with stock whose value has declined.

The headlines make them look like idiots. But those numbers show a wash, which
is pretty good given the market declines. If the numbers in the article are
correct, then my impression of how well they did was wrong.

EDIT: I initially misread how much they sold for. I thought they sold FOR
$2.75 billion, and not AT a valuation of $2.75 billion. I've edited this
accordingly.

