Last week, I got e-mail from eBay's Henry Gomez about his new job as Skype's North American general manager - along with an invitation to contact him if I had any questions. Naturally, I quickly took him up on the offer but didn't get a reply so I pinged him yesterday about my interest in chatting. His response was intriguing because he suggested reading my blog "one gets the impression you think Skype is dead". (Update: Check out Henry's response to this post in the comments below. He promises lots of excitment in 2006!)) I do not believe Skype is dead, although admittedly my recent posts have been far from encouraging or positive about Skype's prospects. What puzzles me is eBay's unwillingness or inability to articulate how Skype fits into the bigger strategic picture. There have been some signs of integration such as Dutch auction site marktplaats.nl but I haven't come across a line-in-the-sand strategy statement by eBay on how it is going to capitalize on Skype's technology and user base. I think there's a sense of strategic urgency for eBay because competition is coming hard and fast from rivals such as Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. Yahoo, for example, is close to launching a new Skype-like service that promises to offer cheaper prices than Skype. Meanwhile, Michael Robertson's Gizmo Project is quickly gaining followers for its solid QoS and willingness to open its source code to external developers. Amid all these developments, the big mystery surrounding Skype is what eBay plans to do with it and whether its plan can justify a $4.1 billion investment. Is Skype mostly going to be an add-on feature within the eBay eco-system? Does eBay plan to aggressively expand Skype's core telecom business? And how does eBay see Skype fitting into the emerging pay-per-call model? Frankly, none of these questions has been answered by eBay since the deal was announced in September. Perhaps eBay wants to get Skype's new management team in place (Gomez and Rajiv Dutta, who will become CEO president after eBay finds his replacement as CFO). Rather than suggesting Skype is dead, I guess what I'm curious about is whether Skype can regain its momentum and/or mojo. Before the acquisition materialized, much of Skype's popularity was its status as a telecom rebel that was quickly changing the rules of the game. This cache prompted millions of people to download Skype (more than 211 million last time I checked) and actually pay for premium services. One of the challenges when a start-up gets bought by an established player is maintaining the smaller firm's culture and entrepreneurial passion. Until eBay articulates otherwise, I'm unclear about Skype is all about these days.
For some other takes on Skype, check out Mathew Ingram and Rob Hyndman. For more information about Gomez, the San Jose Mercury News ran a long profile on Dec. 12.