eBay selling Skype

Looks like eBay is going to offload Skype to private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz, set up by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen. Price tag rumoured to be $2bn, compared to the $3.1 billion that eBay paid in 2005. Google had reportedly been interested but may have been put off at the prospect of going up against carriers that will stock Android devices. Bit of a potential conflict there.

I was always sceptical that eBay would ever gain any synergies from Skype. The whole "call the vendor" business model seemed unlikely. Most vendors don't want to take numerous calls about their sales. Messaging works fine. What's more, eBay were always onto a loser when the purchase of Skype didn't include the enabling technology.