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back to article Skype pair happy to take the money and run

Skype's founders say they are happy to have shaken down eBay for $530m, despite missing out on the huge payday they would've scored if the service was a bigger success. The cash is only a third of what Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom would have trousered in 2009 if Skype had hit profit targets. In a posting on this blog, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Leveraging our synergies ...

    "The monetisation efforts we outlined at the time of the acquisition are not developing as quickly as we had hoped."

    Corporate bullshit for 'we screwed up', perhaps? I can smell the joss-sticks and hear the whalesong from here.

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  2. Peter Kay

    Earn-outs are difficult, my arse

    "Earn-outs are inherently difficult creatures, but we are happy with the result of this one" = 'There's no way we were going to get more money if we carried on, so let's cut and run whilst the going is good'.

    Not that I can blame them, of course - wouldn't you grab the cash too?

    Still, Joost is probably even worse than Skype, and is only propped up for the same reason Skype survived - it's free.

    If Skype wasn't free/very low cost its bloated unreliable software, lackluster interface, crap design and lack of interoperability would have terminated it at birth.

    Joost isn't in the running, and is absolutely crushed by stuff such as 4oD, even with the sneaky peer to peer that contains.

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  3. amanfromMars Silver badge

    Joost <Run> :-) Ruby on Private Rails

    "After exciting many with the quality of its video, Joost doesn't seem to have signed up any shows worth watching during its months of development."

    A Dearth of Suitable Semantic Content [Subliminally SeXXXXdD] in Production Probably.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4oD better?

    are you saying that just because of the content? I've found Joost a blast to use, ok there's not much mainstream content, but hey I have a TV with channel 4 showing the shows for free, I have a PVR to record them for me incase I miss it, so I'll stick with getting my indie stuff off Joost as TV in the UK has yet to provide the programing that interests me.

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  5. Stephen Gray

    What?

    The writing was on the wall at Skype when eBay boss Meg Whitman delivered her verdict during financial season in January. She said: "The monetisation efforts we outlined at the time of the acquisition are not developing as quickly as we had hoped."

    The writing should on the wall for any business executive who spouts shite like that

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