10月開催：eBayはSkypeをなぜ買収したのか？
会社を退職するという実に個人的な事情で9月お休みしてしまったのですが、10月は気を取り直して開催します。
取り直しついでに、今回は少し切り口を変えケーススタディっぽく進めます。お題はeBayのSkype買収。Blogでも取り上げましたが、後々インパクトの大きいディールになりうるため、現時点でどういう意味を持つのかを参加者全員で整理してみます。
なお、ゲストはすっかりP2P領域の専門家になりつつあるアリエルネットワーク/FPNの徳力さんにお願いしています。
Skype Conference 2005にも登場していましたが、最近は企業からの講演依頼もちょくちょく発生しているとのことです（本人談）。
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なお、申し込み方法も少し変え、事前のお題に回答頂いてのエントリーとしたいと思います。
（申し込み多数の場合、抽選の条件にいたします）
今回のお題は二つ。
・なぜeBayはSkypeの買収したのか、逆にSkypeは受け入れたのか
・両社の今後の戦略オプションはどのようなものか
学者のような考察がないと駄目とかいうものではないですが、奮ってご投稿（？）ください。
◆お申し込み、日程、予算
こちらのURLよりお申し込みください。
日時：10月15日 午前10時半より
※会場都合で前後の可能性があります
予算：1500円前後 （会場、人数により変化します）
◆参考資料
・eBayの投資家向けの発表資料（PDF）
・競争のフェーズは完全にシフトした（eBayのSkype買収）
・大型買収二件：SkypeとeBay
・イーベイによるスカイプ買収詳報--動機に疑問の声
・注目を集める「ソフトフォン」--各社の動きが活発化
・The Hype over Skype: Can It Go the Distance?
・The Outlook for VoIP: Regulatory Battles and New Competition
・Skype and Hype
・The Secret to Skype's Success?
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Comments
英語ですみません。
There is a lot of great information about the Skype-Ebay deal online.
This is the investor presentation from eBay:
http://investor.ebay.com/downloads/050912ebay.pdf
Umair Haque of Bubblegeneration.com looks at the aquisition from an economics perspective:
http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2005/09/web-2.cfm
Silicon Beat (San Jose Mercury News) does a wrapup:
http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/09/13/our_skypeebay_postmortem.html
David Cowan (Bessemer Ventures) explains that the Series A round for Skype was led by Rob Stavis. Cowan edited this out of his blog, but he said that Stavis' multiple was 150X.
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2005/09/rob-stavis-led-skype-series.html
Then there was an interesting interview with Stavis by Daniel Primack (who edits Private Equity Week for Thompson Financial):
---start of Primack interview with Stavis---
It likely will go down as the most lucrative deal done by any of those firms (including DFJ's Baidu.com play), so I spent some time yesterday asking Rob Stavis of Bessemer why he pushed for the original investment. His answer is stunning in its simplicity.
According to Stavis, Bessemer was already looking around the VoIP space when it first met with Skype in the summer of 2003. The firm was impressed with the founding team's P2P pedigree (they previously co-founded Kazaa), and thought that the business model made sense from a scaling perspective. What really seems to have sold them, however, was the ease and reliability of Skype's software, which they initially tried out in beta. Specifically, this was one of those rare pieces of software that Stavis and a far-flung colleague could download at the same time and be using five minutes later. No firewall issues, no "this doesn't work on my PC" problems. It may sound basic, but think about all the times you and a colleague have tried to download a piece of software (particularly communications software), only to find out that it works far better on his computer better than on yours.
"Regardless of the firewall, it would traverse the network and find the connection," Stavis explains. "And then it worked 100 times better than anything else we had seen."
---end of Primack interview with Stavis---
Finally, there are two good SJ Merc articles on this acquisition.
This one profiles Howard Hartenbaum (who previously worked in Japan) of Draper Richards, who was the first VC to track down Skype in Europe to invest in them. Howard's the big winner in this story.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/12652317.htm
This one talks about how there are still lawsuits out for Zennstrom and Friis.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/12631635.htm
Posted by: Gen Kanai | September 28, 2005 at 07:17 PM
ebayのpdfを見ながらこのinvestor call mp3を聞いてください。
http://homepage.mac.com/kteare/EBAY-Skype.mp3
Megさんがpdfの説明をしてます。
Posted by: Gen Kanai | September 28, 2005 at 08:03 PM
金井さん、ありがとうございます。
たぶん、PDFについては、「ホント？（笑」というのが本質だと思います。本気で出している説明とはあんまり思えません。嘘はついてないですが。
資料読ませていただきます。
Posted by: SW | October 01, 2005 at 12:25 AM