Skype becomes a Independent VOIP Provider

We have been waiting to hear the news of Ebay selling Skype, Instead they sold a part of it to a group of private investors. What does this deal mean to you? Lets find out.

Skype is and still is the leader in PC based VOIP and was once america's favorite VOIP Phone when they had free calls to USA. Even today, there are thousands of skype downloads everyday around the world. However things have changed a lot globally, with Mobile VOIP taking over traditional PC based VOIP, Skype was late in accepting changes and had to give up to new providers such as Fring, Nimbuzz etc.

Recently Skype was also bought into legal issues with the their peer to peer code. It seems Ebay had enough of this and finally decided to sell the larger chunk of skype to make it a fully independent VOIP Provider.

Skype official blog says, A small group of venture capital funds have agreed with eBay to acquire a majority stake in Skype. The group is led by Silver Lake Partners, joined by Index and Andreessen Horowitz Ventures. You may recognize some names – for example Danny Rimer and Mike Volpi (both at Index Ventures) who were some of the earliest Board members and supporters of Skype.

Now Skype is a independent VOIP Provider, so what does this mean for you?

Ebay always forced skype with more conservative approach in my opinion and now i believe it can act more freely and hopefully can add more value to the already fantastic skype softphone. The key is to open up to the SIP community and have a open bridge connecting to SIP. At the same time, Skype joining the likes of Google Voice is very unlikely at this time.

At a consumer, we can only expect lower prices and the free calls to USA package to return to all american users for FREE.

Lets see what the new team at Skype will bring us, just hope for more innovation for now.