eBay to spin off Skype with a 2010 IPO

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 03:59

Business IT - Technology

The timing could be due to eBay adopting a 'stick to your knitting' strategy to deal with the economic downturn (the company just agreed to sell StumbleUpon back to its founders), but there are also suspicions that it may be related to the cancellation of a technology licence between Joltid and eBay.

Joldid has alleged that eBay's Skype operation is in breach of the licence. This appears to be related to Skype being required by a US court to disclose the code in a patent case.

Skype has asked the English High Court to declare that its use of the code and the disclosure are lawful and that the notices of breach and termination by Joltid are invalid.

"Skype is confident of its legal position," eBay officials said in a US SEC filing.

If the High Court does not rule in eBay's favour, it's hard to see what it has to offer in the planned IPO, as it seems the technology is at the core of Skype's operation.

While Skype is perhaps best known for free user-to-user calls, its revenue comes mainly from calls to or from conventional or mobile phones. Skype is estimated to deliver as much as eight percent of international call minutes, making it the world's largest international voice carrier.

There was recent speculation that Skype's founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were preparing to buy back the company for substantially less than they received from eBay.

Skype recently released an iPhone client and has announced plans for a BlackBerry version.

The company is also beta testing a service that allows organisations with SIP-based telephony systems to connect to the Skype network for inbound and outbound calls.