As I follow the evolution of Skype, I have been starting to ask myself the question: Who is going to buy Skype? A recent report from British broadband equipment maker Sandvine says that more than 1,100 VoIP providers worldwide had opened shop by the first week of April. As with most business cycles, we know that consolidation will eventually occur.
Along with these 1,100 VoIP providers, many big players continue to move into the VoIP market, the latest news articles referring to Cisco, Verizon Make Moves on VoIP . At the same time, Skype has the largest number of users and the largest momentum. Many people are starting to take notice: "We think Skype may be the most rapidly growing product from an acceptance standpoint the world has ever seen" from Mary Meeker, Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley. As such, I believe that it is inevitable that someone will eventually acquire Skype.
So what would they be acquiring? - Skype is a global player with a global "brand" that is gaining value - Skype seems to have a fair amount of valuable relationships with partners around the world. - Skype has a proprietary network and a large user base (giving it some sustainable competitive advantage.) - Skype has lots of users and lots of momentum (though it probably does not have lots of revenue).
Who are all these users and what value is Skype bringing to them? - Skype is primarily used by consumers making free/inexpensive long distance voice calls,. - Other related segments are starting to appear, such as small business making free/inexpensive long distance calls. - Likewise, new types of uses that did not previously exists are starting to appear (such as podcasting, or making lots and lots of free long distance calls) So who would be interested in paying all of this? Is it going to be a software company, a hardware company, a fixed line voice/broadband service provider or a wireless service provider? Or will it be someone else altogether?
I personally believe that WiFi (or WiMAX) will force change to the wireless service provider’s business models. I also believe that if one of them acquired Skype and pushed aggressively forward with Skype on WiFi they would have an interesting new business model (though at this point, I have to admit that I’m really not sure what it would be!) Then again, you never know. Maybe Microsoft will acquire Skype the same way it acquired the last ‘most rapidly growing product from an acceptance standpoint the world has ever seen.‘ (Hotmail)
BTW: Has anyone noticed the Skype.com google ads? Type ‘Skype phone’ into Google and one of the Google AdWords leads to Skype's home page. Anyone know why?
Looking forward to hearing your comments,
Louis-Philip
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Contributor: Louis Philip
Title: Owner
Company: SummitCircle.com
Message: Directory of Skype phones, add-ons and communities.
Email: Email Louis-Philip
Copyright: Copyright © 2004, 2005. SummitCircle.com
Covered Categories: VoIP
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