Why buy Skype?
IRREPRESSIBLE is a word that is usually used to denote something that is hard to control or restrain. Steve Ballmer, the boss of Microsoft, is obviously very fond of it. At a press conference on May 10th to announce the companys whopping $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, an online phone and video-calling service, he used the word several times to imply that Microsoft was still a dynamic company. But the firms shareholders may end up wishing that Mr Ballmer had shown considerably more restraint when negotiating the firms largest ever takeover.
The way the deal came about shows how desperate the software giant was to get its hands on Skype. The target company was heading for a stockmarket flotation until Microsoft suddenly lobbed in an unsolicited offer for it. The amount Microsoft ultimately coughed up for Skype was generous enough to convince the firms investors, which include Silver Lake Partners, a private-equity fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm, to jettison the planned public offering in favour of Microsofts all-cash deal.
Yet it is hard to see how the company can justify splashing out the equivalent of 400 times Skypes operating income last year for its prey. Although Skypes service has become so well-known that its name has become a verb, it has struggled to get users to pay for premium services such as calls to mobile phones. It had 663m registered users last December and made $860m in revenue in 2010, implying revenue per user of a mere $1.30. And it has singularly failed to develop a convincing advertising model.
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2016-02-26
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