Will Skype Go Back To Europe?

Skype is making the news these days, isn't it? When you hear of eBay, you think of the online auction giant, and now also of PayPal, the very practical way of transferring money online, but you hardly think of Skype. Two years after it was born from Europeans Zennstrom and Friis, Skype was sold to eBay for a total of $3.1 billion. At that time, the number of users was 53 million. Across the Atlantic, and four years later, that number has just passed the 400 million mark. Now Zennstrom and Friss want Skype back, and eBay isn't very reluctant to sell. The price that's believed to ship Skype back to Europe: $1.7 billion. Read more on this deal here.

The maths fail me here. With 8 times more users than when it was bought, Skype is getting sold back for half its original price! This suggests that the revenue potential per user is considerably low, and that as a whole, while the product is socially quite valuable, it has very little commercial value. Skype is not a burden for you and me, it even makes us happy, but it seems to be one to eBay. So, whether the Skype we know is going back to Europe for burial or a commercial rebirth will depend on what its fathers will do to it.