Told You So ...

It's official: eBay's purchase of Skype was a bust. Well, if not exactly a bust, the fact that they have written off some $1.4 billion makes it a half-bust at least (isn't a half-bust, a breast?) Additionally, the CEO, Zennstrom, gets the boot and they apparently negotiated a one-third pay out of the incentives part of the deal, but declined to reveal whether or not that was justified by the obviously-disappointing results.

What were they thinking? Indeed, was any thinking involved? Since when does anyone with half a brain believe the financial projections of a start-up for crissakes? Oh, except VCs, of course, who if they stopped believing the insanely-optimistic projections of those pitching to them would suddenly realise how close to the edge they were in fact standing.

Upshot? Don't expect Mystic (not) Meg over at eBay to be doing any Web 2.0 acquisitions in order to grab "eyeballs" any time soon! And someone, somewhere inside eBay will be looking for a job for even daring to think this made sense.

So About This Skype Thing

Just had a telephonic board meeting today where we had call-ins from Korea and an airport in China, both connections via Skype.

Has anyone every seen any estimates on how much Skype is costing the telecom carriers in terms of lost international business? I can't believe we are alone in avoiding like the plague any long distance charges, particularly anything related to overseas calling?

While on this topic, what on earth has eBay done to leverage the synergies they were claiming there would be when they bought it? Looking at their site, Skype is largely invisible, and I've heard *zero* publicly from eBay about this acquisition, really since it closed. Grand strategy or opportunistic investment? Beats me.

A Silicon Valley mystery.