socialmedian: Skype As We Know It May Not Exist Much Longer, eBay Says

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Skype As We Know It May Not Exist Much Longer, eBay Says

Source: readwriteweb

Jul 30, 2009

Summary

EBay is working on software to replace the guts of Skype but is worried that it may not succeed, may lose a court battle with Skype's founders over rights to the core technology and may need to do something drastic some time over the next few years. The company said in a regulatory filing yesterday that if the company fails in both the legal and technical avenues it's pursuing then "continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible."

Joltid, a company owned by Skype's founders, merely licensed some of the system's core technolgy to eBay when it sold Skype to the auction giant in 2005. Joltid now says that the license has been revoked and eBay is infringing on its rights by continuing to use the technology. The case is scheduled to go to court in June of 2010 but eBay is trying to replace the technology in the mean time. It may not succeed.

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Joseph Galante at Bloomberg News cites Jayanth Angl, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, who argues that replacing the technology will not be easy. "It would be quite

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Comments (1)

Coldacid,

Jul 31, 2009

My guess at what's happened over the last few months is that eBay said "we're not selling it back to you" and the old owners replied "well, we're going to fuck you over, then."