The not unexpected news that Skype has come to an agreement with its founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis over the peer-to-peer intellectual property behind the world's leading VoIP play, is now having a ripple effect. Ian Scales reports.
There was always going to be a deal - only the price was unknown. In the end Zennström and Friis are back on the Skype board; they have pitched some money into the new Skype and own 14 per cent of the whole. EBay will retain 30 per cent of Skype under its new ownership and the deal values the company at $2.75 billion.
Most significantly, Skype will own all the software previously licensed from Joltid (the company owned by Zennström and Friis which holds the IP) and all the litigation currently pending against the investor group and eBay by Joltid is to be dropped.
The question asked since the dispute between Joltid and eBay broke out - why did eBay spend billions on something they essentially didn't own - still hasn't been answered.
But the deal has triggered two other fascinating developments. Now the Scandinavian pair are now free to concentrate more of their attention on Rdio, a venture that's being described as a digital music start-up and sounds in concept a lot like Spotify. We wait with interest to see how that develops.
Meanwhile, Skype's Plan B should its negotiations with Joltid have failed had been to buy another VoIP provider and use that as a Skype back-end.
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Regulators should open the mobile Internet now