Comment:
" One need not look farther than Apple and the Spindler years to see what happens to a successfully disruptive “tech” company when it’s taken over by “Marketing” folks.
When I first heard that Skype was being aquired by eBay, I was willing to give it time to see what came of the acquisition; I haven’t been disappointed yet. I only hope that Skype continues to improve it’s client programs and network as it has in the past year.
Good luck Neo-Skype, if you fail where you’ve risen, I’m more than sure someone will be there to pick up the pieces…
(See Napster –> Kazaa, Spindler-Apple –> Jobs-Apple, SuprNova –> The Pirate Bay, for “torch grabbing” details)
" Hmmm…
This is just a hunch, but I would guess that the pre-acquisition fire-ees are being scraped up off the London sidewalks right about now, if their buddies haven’t already tossed them into tart-filled private limos for the ride home (tart = hooker). As for the poor sods who joined Skype after the deal thinking they were joining a dynamic web 2.0 powerhouse, and then got fired a few weeks or months into the job, I guess they’ll be telling their kids “it’s scientific experiments for the lot of you”.
Friday, December 15, 2006 at 10:08 AM PT
Luxembourg, December 15th, 2006 – Skype today announced two key personnel changes. Alex Kazim, Skype’s President, will be leaving Skype in January to return to eBay. Kazim, an 8-year eBay veteran, joined Skype immediately following eBay’s acquisition of the company 14 months ago. He was responsible for product development and innovation at Skype and reported to Niklas Zennström, Skype’s Chief Executive Officer.
2007/8/21
Monday, October 1, 2007 at 9:58 AM PT
"Skype’s business model (is)was fundamentally flawed.
Adding subscribers will constantly reduce calls that generate revenue and if everyone in the world were to get skype, it will have zero revenue.
There is a critical point beyond which having to maintain infra-structure costs a lot more than revenues. With 220 Million accounts, my calculation says that Skype reached that point a while ago !!
Most businesses would love hockey stick growth, skype would collapse even if it hit halfway!
The management & VCs sold out at a good time.
As PT Barnum said .. there is sucker born every minute.
Satish Sharma on October 1st, 2007 at 3:15 pm - #"
October 1, 2007, 1:19 pm
"Here’s a suggestion to every Internet executive: take a Post-It note, write “EBay wasted $3 billion on Skype” and stick it to your monitor. Stare at it the next time some hot social whatever-2.0 company comes by and talks about growing fast and finding a revenue model later."
“Right after the bust, people started focusing on business models and revenue,” said Greg Sterling, a Silicon Valley analyst and consultant. “There has been a little bit of departure on that, with a focus on building the biggest audience and figuring that revenues will follow. That is the attitude that has prevailed over the last couple years, and it may not be sound.”
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I am wondering a issue which may trouble the investors and CEOs for long - how to evaluate a company?
Skype is where the employees are happy, kind of techie geek atmosphere. But when it comes to Wall Street and San Jose, people only care about one thing - profit.
When people do what they like, being happy, they are able to do the right thing. 大手和過於天真的小朋友，接下來的結局會是什麼呢？
因為有恩所以不能輕易說些什麼，我是一個小小小員工也未必可能做什麼，或了解其上的大人物們混亂的是什麼。
也許現在有點事後諸葛的意味，但或許當初的感覺的確正確，我喜歡其上摘錄的評論"One need not look farther than Apple and the Spindler years to see what happens to a successfully disruptive “tech” company when it’s taken over by “Marketing” folks."
Skype那種歐陸Tech guy的自由氣氛，和eBay美國的那種零售業威勢確實難以相容吧。
事後想想，從2006.9起暴增的離職信，eBay的人帶來的，親切卻不容反抗的命令，都是sign吧。
我無法說我愛Skype，但是的確在那裡度過很快樂的時光，就算最後覺得沮喪不堪。
真奇怪我居然就這樣斷了線什麼都不知道，還是基層的小員工也不用關心上層的變動跟紛擾？
現在，大家不知道怎麼樣了呢？
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