This news story claims that while eBay did pay 2.6 billion for Skype, it didn’t include core technology.
Rather, eBay licensed it hoping they could replace it on their own. Which may not happen.
Brilliant.
We’ve received some of the iChat logs between two higher ups at eBay, that may explain how this fiasco came about:
Brilliant eBay Person A: “Whoa, check it out, these guys are auctioning off skype on OUR site, totally bid man!”
Brilliant eBay Person B: “Are we sure the box comes with everything? It says ‘Includes 1 of 20 possible licenses'”
Brilliant eBay Person A:“I dunno, we’d never let people put up shady auctions, just bid! There are like 2 minutes left, look! see! some dude ‘developersdevelopersdevelopers1976’ just bid a billion, c’mon!”