Do You Save money By “Skyping”?

September 2nd, 2010

Cisco makes offer for Skype
I’ve been ‘Skyping’ for years. It began when my eldest son left home to seek his fortune and we were desperate to keep in touch with him but had a hard time paying for the long distance calls as he drifted around Asia and finally came to a stop in Australia. One day I was complaining about our phone account in the office when someone told me about Skype. We made aVOIP connection to my son late that night while he was sitting in an Internet café in Sydney the following morning.

Confirmed ‘Skypers’
From that day we have been confirmed ‘Skypers’. Today I am a work-at-homer but in constant touch with my head office on Skype. In all the years I have been using Skype the number of dropped or poor quality calls has been negligible, no higher than the regular phone service.

History
Skype was founded in 2003 by the Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström and the Dane Janus Friis. The software was developed by Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn, the same individuals who together with Niklas and Janus were originally behind the peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa. In April 2003, Skype.com and Skype.net domain names were registered. In August 2003, the first public beta version was released.

VOIP
Skype is a Voice Over Internet Protocol which allows users to have online phone, video and text conversations over the internet. Skype bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice and video calls over the Internet. It allows users to call others free of charge and to connect with land lines or mobile devices at low rates. In December 2005 video-telephony was introduced, meaning you could attach a camera and see who you are talking to. They can also see you…

Owned by…
eBay acquired Skype Limited in September 2005 and in the fall of 2009 sold a majority stake to an investor group. Late last year online auction giant eBay sold a majority stake in Skype for some $2-billion to a group of investors that included the two founders of the company. The deal valued Skype at $2.75-billion.

Users
In April 2006, the number of registered users reached 100 million. In 2010, a report by TeleGeography Research stated that Skype-to-Skype calls accounted for 13% of all international call minutes in 2009. Out of the 406 billion international call minutes, a total of 54 billion were Skype calls.

Latest bid
The technology blog TechCrunch said on Monday that US networking giant Cisco has made an offer to acquire Internet communications firm Skype. TechCrunch, citing what it described as “one of our more reliable sources”, said the San Jose, California-based Cisco is seeking to acquire Skype before the Internet telephony company makes an initial public offering or IPO. “Skype insiders are hoping for an out of the gate valuation of five billion dollars, we’ve heard,” TechCrunch said. “Presumably Cisco would have to be bidding in that range to make it interesting.”

Small start, big money

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 9:01 am and is filed under Finance, Money, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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