eBay is finally taking steps toward integrating Skype into its e-commerce sites. The world will be interested, because the Skype acquisition was one of the most curious moves in the M&A market last
year. Skype was always an undoubtedly promising target--but one that most observers felt was more suited to a telecom company or Web portal. The online auctioneer bought Skype for an expensive $4.1
billion; many thought eBay wanted to make it easier for buyers and sellers to communicate, removing the communications issues that sometimes prevent deals from closing. Nearly a year later, the
oddness of the Skype deal and eBay's inability to integrate it are believed to be one of the reasons that eBay's stock has been flagging this year. Finally, on Tuesday, company CEO Meg Whitman said
eBay would launch a pilot program next Monday to test the VoIP service alongside 14 categories of goods on eBay's U.S. Web site. The pilot is free of charge, but eBay says it eventually expects to
charge sellers for using Web-based voice calls to be linked to buyers--like the "click to call" services offered by Google and others. Sellers now have the option of adding a "Skype Me" button when
listing the goods they sell, allowing buyers to start a voice or text conversation with them. Under its new agreement with Yahoo, which was announced late last month, eBay plans to integrate Skype
into Yahoo's Web sites, too.
Read the whole story at Financial Times »
