Ebay Settles Lawsuit With Skype Founders; Spinoff Of Company Moving Forward
Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype who sold the company to Ebay in 2005 for $2.6 billion had recently been holding up the resale of the company with lawsuits charging that IP central to the internet telephony service was owned by another of their companies, Joltid – and that Skype owed Joltid licensing fees.
These lawsuits were settled today by Ebay, who agreed with Zennström and Friis to give them a 14 percent stake in their old company, which will now completely own the Joltid IP.
Acquisition of Skype from Ebay has been underway for several months by a group of investors, including Marc Andreessen, through his new fund Andreessen Horowitz.
Skype has 521 million users worldwide and has become the largest international voice carrier. In 2008, about 8% of international call traffic was carried by Skype.
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