eBay is allowing a Skype competitor to embed voice icons on user Web sites. Jajah is launching a service that allows eBay users to talk directly to one another without additional hardware or software. The Jajah Buttons incur calls at Jajah's rates, which it bills free "in many cases … to other registered users or as low as 3 cents a minute to the most called places on Earth."
Bay cozied up to Jajah, its two-year-old Silicon Valley VoIP neighbor, just days after announcing it would take a $1.4 billion charge for Skype. The charge includes a $900 million write-off on the valuation of the Luxembourg-based VoIP, which eBay bought in 2005 for $2.6 billion. The charge also included a $530 million payout to Skype shareholders based on performance--less than one-third of wthe amount initially anticipated. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom also was stood down as CEO of the company, but will stay on as chairman. eBay's chief strategy officer, Michael van Swaaij, will be in charge until a new CEO is found.
Skype's had a turbulent year, with a high-profile outage followed by a nasty worm attack. Still, with a registered user base of more than 200 million, a reorg isn't the end of the world. eBay's irrational ebullience in '05 is hardly Skype's fault. No one would know Mark Cuban's name had someone at Yahoo! not lost their mind seven years ago.
This is an article from FierceVoIP- the greatest ever source for the VoIP News!
Keywords: Jajah, Skype, VoIP, eBay, FierceVoIP
RSS