Blimey it’s been ages since I posted anything, truth be known I pretty much forgot I had a blog. I have been so stoked with my new job and everything that has been going on that it slipped off my radar, apologies about that.

Things have been pretty hectic to be honest and they are going yo get worse before they get better. I even have 12 days of straight work coming up! WOO…

Anyway while I have been buried under a mountain of work, quite a few things have happened to Skype. I have been a big fan of Skype for a long time and have used their service for many years with both incoming numbers and outgoing calls. When Ebay purchased Skype back to 2005 I was concerned with what would happen to the company. Luckily Ebay decided not to change much with the VoIP firm and let it carry on as was, then came the thunderstorm that was Joltid vs Skype.
When Ebay purchased Skype it failed to acquire the rights to the underlying technology that powers the system. Instead they licensed it, this technology was created by the Founders of Skype Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis and belongs to their company Joltid.
Earlier this year Zennstrom and Friis tried to buy back Skype for much less than it was sold with the help of some private equity groups. This bid was declined by Ebay due to “serious undervaluation” however, Friis and Zennstrom had another card in their hand. When Ebay took over they noticed that changes were made to elements of the program that meant the licensed technology had been modified. This broke the terms and conditions of the licensing agreement and now Joltid are taking Ebay to court to have the license agreement dissolved. If this is successful then Skype as we know it will be rendered useless.

This is not the only issue, with the court date for Ebay Vs Joltid set for June next year it surely would be a bad time for someone to buy Skype from Ebay wouldn’t it? Not according to a collection of investor groups led by Andreessen Horowitz. This collection have reached an agreement to buy a 65% stake in Skype in a deal that values the business at £2.75 billion. Ebay have been clear that they want to offload Skype as they published thier intentions to release an IPO and float the company as it’s own entity next year. Basically it’s a round about way of telling people interested in buying Skype that it is for sale.

For me this is a great opportunity for Skype to excel in what it does, since Ebay bought Skype they have not really done much with the company, very few new services have come from the VoIP firm certainly nothing that shakes up the market at all. Hopefully this acquisition will spur the company to release new services and new features.
In my opinion this needs to be done fast. Google Voice is approaching public release and looks set to be on a collision course with Skype’s business model. The features promised by Google Voice and the facilities that Grand Central (the company Google bought to make Voice a reality) offered, means that it does all that Skype can and more. Google Voice will also offer one number that will ring all your devices simultaneously, something Skype cannot (at the moment do).

The biggest thing Skype has to stave off the Google Voice assimilation attempt is the fact that many users have SkypeIn numbers that they rely on, of course these numbers are Skype’s numbers and cannot be ported out can they….?

Wrong: in Skype’s FAQ’s section it states

In some countries, when you move from one phone company to another, you have the right to take your number with you – it’s called “Number Portability” in the phone world.

If you don’t need your on-line number (SkypeIn) any longer, you can contact your phone company and ask them if they provide this facility.

So if Google Voice brings out a number porting service to allow you to bring a number in then they have a genuine ability to grab the Skype customers. Only time will tell if that’s going to be a possibility.

This is just getting interesting!

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