from Hacker News

Shock threat to shut Skype

by leriksen on 7/31/09, 6:56 AM with 14 comments

• by adamt on 7/31/09, 8:10 AM

  It does make you wonder about eBay's M&A team if they buy a company for $2.6Bn but still have to license the key bit of technology from the people they bought it from, AND with a license that the other side didn't have to renew.

  Should at least make for an interesting lawsuit and a nice pay day for some lawyers!

• by yardie on 7/31/09, 8:27 AM

  How do you pay so much for a company and end up having to pay more for the technology. I don't even know why they paid so much for skype in the first place. Yes, the technology is cool, but not $2.6Bn cool. Even if they did have to license the engine it should have been perpetual with a buyout option. Then, again eBay must have been drunk off all the monies they are making screwing over users with insane fees.

• by riffic on 7/31/09, 3:18 PM

  good riddance, maybe their users will jump to Google Talk or other standards-based services.

  This should serve as a cautionary tale to any company who relies on licensing proprietary technology in spite of emergent open standards.

• by jwilliams on 7/31/09, 8:45 AM

  eBay announced it is planning to IPO Skype next year. I guess this is somehow related.

• by dctoedt on 7/31/09, 2:00 PM

  When eBay agreed to license (not buy) the key piece of technology, I wonder why the license wasn't made irrevocable.