'Google To Purchase Skype?' Chatter Lights Up The Blogosphere

A Google-Skype partnership would make sense on some levels because the companies have teamed up on some major issues.

Google and Skype, together at last? At least on some blog posts they are.

The rumor that Google might acquire Skype was started Monday in a blog on the U.K.'s respected Guardian and since then, the report has taken on a life of its own at investment firms.

Like many Google rumors there is no solid basis for any such speculation (remember the Google phone?). But it persists because there are some logical reasons for the two companies to establish a deeper relationship.

"Currently in favor around London's webbist community is the rumor that Google has been in negotiations to buy Skype," wrote Guardian blogger Jemima Kiss. "Google bases all of its mobile projects in London, so this is the fitting place for such a rumor.


A Google-Skype partnership would make sense on some levels because the companies have teamed up on some major issues. For instance, the two companies partnered with some other firms in making a $21.7 million investment in Fon, a Spanish company that promotes the spread of its Wi-Fi "foneros" -- users who share Wi-Fi access points with each other.

And, the two companies' philosophies are aligned in the upcoming 700 MHz auction; both firms support the "open" measures inherent in the FCC auction.

A Google acquisition of VoIP specialist Skype, a unit of eBay, "makes since on a number of levels, particularly because it fits with Google's ambitions for disrupting the mobile industry through its new open mobile phone development platform Android," blogged Kiss, "And for eBay -- which was recently forced to admit that it had paid too much for Skype."

With several million users on line at any given time, Skype is the largest of a sizable wave of VoIP companies utilizing the Web to send free or inexpensive calls, usually over international borders.

But will a merger or an acquisition involving Skype ever happen? Asked to comment on the rumor, Skype said it doesn't comment on rumors.
Informationweek.com