voice-over-IP

AT&T Buy Vonage? Get Serious.

Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily in News on September 2, 2009 at 1:20 pm PT

In the latest, weirdest twist to the crazy trading in Vonage, there apparently are rumors that the company could be acquired by AT&T. That just might be the dumbest rumor I’ve ever heard. For starters, AT&T a few years ago started its own voice over IP service called CallVantage–but quietly shut down the service earlier this year.

Skype Gets the Oprah Treatment

Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 21, 2009 at 8:17 am PT

Oprah Winfrey may already be the Queen of All Media, but lately she’s been gunning for another title: Queen of All Tech. Thursday’s episode of the show (taped earlier this month) is entirely dedicated to Skype, eBay’s soon-to-be-spun-off Internet communications service.

StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)

Kara Swisher in News on April 13, 2009 at 1:20 pm PT

The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago. It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital. Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO. “We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious. That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.

Skype: It's Business Time

John Paczkowski in News on March 23, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

Describing its long-term financial outlook to analysts last week, eBay said it expects Skype to more than double its revenue to over $1 billion by 2011. Quite a claim to make about an Internet telephony business for which the company has taken some pretty nasty write-downs, a business that back in January eBay seemed to be looking to divest. But apparently, eBay sees quite a bit of promise in Skype’s new voice-over-IP service for businesses.

Skype: It’s Business Time

John Paczkowski in News on March 23, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

Describing its long-term financial outlook to analysts last week, eBay said it expects Skype to more than double its revenue to over $1 billion by 2011. Quite a claim to make about an Internet telephony business for which the company has taken some pretty nasty write-downs, a business that back in January eBay seemed to be looking to divest. But apparently, eBay sees quite a bit of promise in Skype’s new voice-over-IP service for businesses.