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Abstract

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis emerged from obscurity and became Internet legends after creating KaZaA, an illegal on-line file-sharing programme. After selling KaZaA, Zennstrom and Friis, embarked on their next project, an Internet telephony programme called Skype. Unlike KaZaA, Skype was legal, but as KaZaA had rattled the music industry, Skype''s revolutionary business model was expected to threaten the traditional models of the giant telecom companies. Internet heavyweights, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google, were said to be negotiating with Zennstrom and Friis to acquire Skype. On 12 September 2005, eBay acquired Skype for US$2.6 billion. This case study, while highlighting the evolution of Skype and its acquisition by eBay, facilitates discussion on the potential synergies that eBay might gain from the acquisition and the problems it might encounter in the course of a successful integration with Skype. A structured assignment ''305-541-4'' is available to accompany this case.
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September 2005

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Abstract

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis emerged from obscurity and became Internet legends after creating KaZaA, an illegal on-line file-sharing programme. After selling KaZaA, Zennstrom and Friis, embarked on their next project, an Internet telephony programme called Skype. Unlike KaZaA, Skype was legal, but as KaZaA had rattled the music industry, Skype''s revolutionary business model was expected to threaten the traditional models of the giant telecom companies. Internet heavyweights, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google, were said to be negotiating with Zennstrom and Friis to acquire Skype. On 12 September 2005, eBay acquired Skype for US$2.6 billion. This case study, while highlighting the evolution of Skype and its acquisition by eBay, facilitates discussion on the potential synergies that eBay might gain from the acquisition and the problems it might encounter in the course of a successful integration with Skype. A structured assignment ''305-541-4'' is available to accompany this case.

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Location:
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Other setting(s):
September 2005

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