Like most stories, there are two sides to the issue.
It seems like the P2P tech was a big "insider info" advantage that enabled Volpi to close the deal. The fact that he knew Skype could be implemented without the P2P backend was reassuring enough to the investors that they purchased Skype.
My understanding is that the very fact Volpi had that information is kindof sketchy, kindof "insidery." In other words, Skype might never have been sold if the buyers didn't already know they could cut out the P2P backend, but they would never have had that knowledge if Volpi hadn't worked so closely with Skype's tech.
So, the real question then is why does that matter ? If they decide to cut out the P2P backend shouldn't that be their freedom to choose to do so ?
If ebay wants to unload skype I can imagine that the best candidate to unload it to would be the one that knows the most about it.
Most parties that want to buy something will want to know everything there is possibly to know about it before they buy it. Technical due-dilligence would normally look exactly at factors like this, and as far as I know it is ebay that is selling, not J&F.
I agree, maybe they think that it won't make any difference to them in the future but I'm not so sure.
This does not reflect very well on them. They cleaned up pretty good when they sold their project to ebay, these lawsuits are very ugly indeed.
Kazaa was spun out in a pretty sneaky fashion as well, they jumped all over the place to stay ahead of the law, then they made skype on the back of the tech they wrote to make kazaa work. So effectively all this harks back to the kazaa days.
Ebay messed up royally when they bought it, but as far as I know it was paid several times over, no need to try to do another round of extortion.
Skype is a pretty good product on top of a nice piece of networking code but nothing that could not be done again.
By risking the future of skype (and possibly even ebay) they really show they don't care about anybody but themselves.
Not the best tag to have on you as a business person.
In Europe everybody that wants to be somebody is still fawning over them though, I wonder how long that will last.
It seems like the P2P tech was a big "insider info" advantage that enabled Volpi to close the deal. The fact that he knew Skype could be implemented without the P2P backend was reassuring enough to the investors that they purchased Skype.
My understanding is that the very fact Volpi had that information is kindof sketchy, kindof "insidery." In other words, Skype might never have been sold if the buyers didn't already know they could cut out the P2P backend, but they would never have had that knowledge if Volpi hadn't worked so closely with Skype's tech.