Profit-lite Skype Appointed eBay Head

Skype is the most popular Voice over IP client and service in the world. Earlier this month, it hit the 100 billion minutes spent talking margin and it is still increasing its user database. The 2.6 billion dollars spent by eBay, when it first acquired Skype, seem to have been well spent when looking at the huge number, but the VoIP company did not manage to capitalize on its popularity.

The sending of John Silverman (current CEO of the eBay price comparison wing Shopping.com) to take the helm of Skype is one in the many attempts from the online auctioning site to turn the situation around. He writes in his inaugural blog post that "Skype is one of the defining internet technologies of our era... it's changing the world. You don't look forward to something like that. You drop what you're doing and jump aboard." His enthusiasm doesn't seem genuine, I don't believe there is somebody willing to bury himself alive, because only some brilliant management and even better contacts could pull Skype out of the bottomless pit sucking money that it is right now. Last year, it recorded a $1.4 billion write-down.

The VoIP company has failed in both of the domains set before it, that of advertising and e-commerce. Was the bid for taking it over worth it? Many people connected to eBay seem to think it wasn't, but there's always the chance it will spin around. Just that nobody seems to believe it anymore.

"As chief executive, I'm stepping into a flight deck first captained by co-founder Niklas Zennström and latterly interim CEO Michael van Swaaij. Both of whom have done great, meaningful things with this company. I don't yet have the right to expect your enthusiastic two thumbs up. But as we go further on this journey together, I plan to earn it," Silverman wrote.

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