eBay’s Skype Dilemma
Back in 2005 the auction giant, eBay, purchased the internet telephony service, Skype. It surprised a lot of people at the time, because there was this nagging question of what will eBay do with Skype?
Fast forward 4 years. eBay still has not figured out what to do with Skype and there are again rumors of them floating it for sale. The problem with Skype is that even though it’s a Voice over IP service (VOIP), it’s still largely a wired service. That means you have to use with either a stationary hand set or a fixed range hand set (like a cordless phone).
Trouble is, this isn’t where telecommunications is going. It’s gone (and is still going) wireless. VOIP Services like Skype and Vonage help to cut down old school wired phone costs (also known as POTS lines) but VOIP services still have the inherent limitations of being a wired service. Whoever ends up with Skype will have to figure out how to take it to the next level and somehow tap it into the wireless services. Clearly eBay has not figured out how to do that and probably wishes they had not purchased Skype.
