November 17, 2006
Show Me The Money In VoIP - The Fabled Skype ROI
Recently, I did some rough math on how long it might take eBay to recoup their US$2.6B purchase of Skype last year. My admittedly rough calcs showed about 4 years (17 quarters), not counting inflation and taxes, based on recently observed quarterly increases in gross revenues. But Russell Shaw thinks that it'll take years for the ROI to show on Skype, which is in agreement with Kevin O'Brien's Where's the return on investment. Oh ye of little faith! Didn't I just agree with Andy Abramson that eBay has too many smarts to not monetize Skype in some manner? Granted they'll need some "disruptor" type management to replace those old-school Skypers heading for the door.
Russell also says that Skype doesn't understand how business users think, in relation to the quietly released Skype 3.0 for Windows - Business version, and explains his reasoning. Jim Courtney of Skype Journal echoes this sentiment, partly because Skype did so little to promote this version. Now I have to agree with Russell there, despite reserving judgement the other day. Their software, pre-eBay, was never intended for enterprise. This new "business" version has a few concessions for enterprises, but there's a lot that's left out, such as an IP PBX, etc.
If eBay is smart, they'll buy Canadian Pika Technologies, who've married Skype to an Asterisk IP PBX. Though I don't know how the open source license would work in this case. Still, an alliance with a company as smart as Pika would do post-eBay Skype a world of good in terms of business solution potential.
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