Suckers?

Well for an outfit that depends on suckers for its primary business I wonder how it feels to be on the other side of the coin?

Suckers as primary business?

I've shopped around extensively for my calling needs (with a dispersed family I need to call several countries regularly) and Skype is pretty good as far as costs go, and very reliable. I use them along with Sipgate, and I've found the service to be very good overall. Not perfect, but then, what is?

Now, as for the investors being suckers, I'm not a venture capitalist, so I can't judge that one. Surely, if you're a venture capitalist, you must get "it" right more often than not, or you'd be broke, so only time will tell on that one I think.

looks good for ebay

Hold on if i get this right they've sold 2/3rds of their stake in a downturn for roughly what they paid for that 2/3rds in a boom. Therefore reducing their exposure whilst still holding onto a big enough share if it all come good - sounds like a good deal for ebay to me.

what about the IPR

No mention of the IPR issue - didn't Zennstrom / Frijs claim to have not sold the IPR when they did the original deal, can't imagine VC's would like that...

C'mon reg tell us the whole story..

Silver Lake Vultures

Having been employed by a company once aquired by Silver Lake Partners (amongst others) then I can expect Skype to get no further funding and to go through some rather drastic cost cutting. Then with a bit of a positive spin they'll flog it off to someone else for lots more money and be laughing all the way to wherever they store all their cash.

Or that's my experience of them, and I'm sure Seagate has suffered along the same lines.