All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis
|
|
|
20 Nov 2009
Online auction giant eBay has finally completed the sale of its popular Skype internet telephony service, in a deal worth $2.75bn (£1.66bn).
The deal, which was first announced at the beginning of September, will see eBay retain a 30 per cent equity investment in Skype, while the new owners will control the majority 70 per cent stake.
The buyer is an investor group led by Silver Lake, and includes Joltid Limited and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, set up by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.
Joltid is the company owned by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, and its inclusion in the group comes as a result of the out-of-court settlement reached after the pair sued eBay over copyright issues regarding Skype's technology.
For its part, eBay will be glad that it has managed to offload the service for slightly more than the $2.6bn (£1.57bn) it paid in 2005, given that the service never fitted into its main business.
Latest stories from Software
Related videos
Related articles
Related jobs
Poll
Are you confident that the UK's IT infrastructure is secure from attack in the wake of the Flame malware revelations?
Orange and Intel talk us through the ins and outs of their San Diego smartphone
Connect with V3.co.uk
The wrong printers, for the wrong tasks on the wrong contracts
Who leads the BI pack and who should we be watching out for?
Helpdesk/Service Analyst x 3 3 Month Contract...
French Technical support Specialist (2/3rd Line) CCNA...
ECM Project Manager - CMS, "Document Management", Web...
Skills - Presales, Consultant / Consultancy, Technical...
Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.
Do you agree?