All posts under tagged ‘Niklas Zennstrom’

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For Skypers, First the Party, Then the Job Cuts

Source: gigaom.com

Almost 10 days ago, Niklas Zennstrom, the co-founder of Skype, threw a party to remember at London’s swanky The Cuckoo Club. The nightclub, which is normally the haunt of Prince Harry and his brother and the rest of the jet set, played host to Skypers — both current and past — including co-founder Janus Friis. Unfortunately, after the party came the hangover.

It is rumored that nearly 30 Skype employees — mostly in the London office, but also some in Estonia, came back from the weekend to find pink slips waiting for them. I am told that most of the folks who were cut were from the marketing side of the business. We have emailed Skype PR to get an update/confirmation on the news of job cuts. It is cruel to say, not a very merry Christmas for those who have been nudged out.

Several senior executives had already quit the company. On Oct. 1, Zennstrom announced that he was resigning as CEO and Skype took an impairment charge of about $1.43 billion.

Skype recently made the wrong kind of headlines when it pulled a switcheroo on some of its London-based SkypeIn customers. eBay has been trying to rationalize the Skype’s operations and at the same time trying to figure out what to do with its ultra-popular but not quite profitable P2P voice service. Google was rumored to be interested in Skype, but we haven’t heard anything at all.

Published on December 8th, 2007 under , , , , ,

Michael Jackson to Skype: Beat It

Source: gigaom.com

The exodus of senior management from eBay’s Skype division continues. Ten days after co-founder Niklas Zennstrom decided to say sayonara to the P2P telephony company, Michael Jackson, one of its early employees and VP of operations, has left the building. I had wondered why eBay (EBAY) didn’t bump him up to the top spot.

He was said to be chatting with a mobile payments company, but that information turned out to be not true. (My bad!) Instead, he is joining one of Skype’s earliest backers, Mangrove Partners. He’ll take the title of general partner, and is likely to go back to his first love: telecom and mobile. So Euro startups with mobile thrillers, it’s time to call MJ.

Published on October 11th, 2007 under , , , ,

Static On Skype, Zennstrom Quits

Source: gigaom.com

Niklas Zennstrom has resigned as CEO of Skype, but will become non-executive chairman of the company’s board. Michael van Swaaij, eBay’s (EBAY) chief strategy officer, has been appointed interim CEO until a replacement is found.

eBay also announced that it has paid EUR 375 million (approximately $530 million) to settle all of its future obligations under the earn-out agreement signed with certain Skype shareholders when eBay acquired Skype in 2005.

Clearly, Skype’s master plan wasn’t working, and revenue targets that were supposed to determine the earnouts weren’t met. So instead of a billion-dollar-plus earnout, Zennstrom and co-founder Janus Friis will have to settle for $530 million. Boo-hoo.

eBay is going to take an impairment charge of around $1.43 billion. eBay had bought Skype in 2005 for roughly $4 billion — $2.6 billion up front, with the rest as an earnout.

One expensive Skype adventure, don’t you think? The outcome shouldn’t come as a surprise; we have been reporting on the chaos at Skype for months. eBay clearly botched up this deal. For Niklas this is a good time to go — he has a growing portfolio of companies he has invested in via his fund, Atomico. He tried to fix things at Skype after he took back control in December 2006, but things haven’t worked out according to plan.

Interestingly, Skype’s President VP of operations, Michael Jackson, wasn’t tapped as the CEO or even as acting CEO. He is the man who has been running the shop for a long time. Why not? Is it because he is going to leave as well, and start a company of his own…a new play in the mobile payments arena, perhaps?

Published on October 1st, 2007 under , , ,

Zennstrom steps down as Skype CEO

Source: voipcentral.org

niklas zennstrom

Niklas Zennstrom today stepped down from the position of Skype CEO. He will be now the non-executive chairman of Skypes board. It has been officially announced by Skype-owner eBay.

Visionary Zennstrom co-founded Skype together with Janus Friis in 2003, which has been acquired by eBay on October 14, 2005 for $2.6 billion USD. The VoIP startup has now more than 196 million registered users all over the world.

In an interview Hani Durzy, eBay spokesperson expressed,

He (Niklas Zennstrom) is an entrepreneur first and foremost and he wanted to spend more time on some of his new projects that he has been working on.

It is more or less apparent that Zennstrom will now fully concentrate on his dream IPTV project, Joost.

eBay informs that Michael van Swaaij will be the acting CEO of Skype until the fresh appointment.

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Published on October 1st, 2007 under , ,

Skype now focuses on SEO

Source: voipcentral.org

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If Smith is to be believed, Skype might have lost a large volume of sales due to poor SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. If someone searches Skype-related products, they are rarely displayed in the first page of search result pages, he adds. The small companies have an edge over Skype in the areas of SEO.

Skype has finally realized the importance of SEO for online business. Therefore, it has joined hands with Bigmouthmedia, the leading full search marketing company to manage its comprehensive organic search offering across the major search engines.

Initially, they will target on search engines in eight geographic locations. They are UK, France, German, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Japan.

Co-founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2003, Skype has emerged one of the most influential VoIP start ups in the world over the past four years. It has registered some 196 million customers worldwide.

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Published on June 28th, 2007 under , , , ,

Skype breaches 500 million mark in terms of download

Source: voipcentral.org

skype-reachs-milestone_28Let me summarize the latest Skype report in few points,

A)At least six users download Skype in every second

B)Skype to Skype minutes by the end of fourth quarter of 2006 was 7.6 billion

C)The total registered users in September, 2005 was 54 million and it is now 171 million

D)Skype has now more than 500 million downloads

From the above statistics, it is very clear that eBay-owned Skype is now one of most favored free downloadable software in the world. Introduced in August 2003, Skype took just 42 months to reach the magical figure.

Upbeat Niklas Zennstrom, CEO and co-founder of Skype reveals,

The entire Skype team owes its success to the global community of registered users we have today who tell their loved ones how much they enjoy using Skype. Were absolutely delighted that so many people are embracing Skype and speaking to friends or family all over the world for free or very little cost.

Published on March 8th, 2007 under ,

Skype boys reveal Venice Project developed on Mozilla framework

Source: voipcentral.org

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We have devoted a good number of posts on Venice Project, the new online television service initiated by Skype founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. I read the latest updates about the project from NewTeeVee. In the post, Om has tried to cover all most all the aspects of Venice Project.

What I came to know that Niklas and Janus duo is building the project on the Mozilla application framework.

Om explains,

Mozilla has blossomed because of its lightweight footprint, security features, but mostly because of a vibrant developer community that has written plug-ins that extend Mozilla in many different ways.

The Mozilla framework would enable the company to integrate a number of web services like social networking, video sharing and online chatting into its client.

Image:Mozilla

Published on January 14th, 2007 under , , , ,

Skype founders all set to launch IPTV services next year

Source: voipcentral.org

There has been much hype regarding the Venice Project, codename of IPTV service started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom in July this year. I came to know that Janus-Niklas duo has finished the project and set to launch the broadband TV service sometime next year.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Janus Friis expressed that the Venice Project is currently under trial involving 6,000 people and would be available next year.

The Venice Project combines the best things of television with the social power of the Internet. It displays high-quality, full-screen video on a computer screen. It supports both PC and Mac. Like Skype, the IPTV services will be free for all. The customer needs Net connection to access the TV programs of Skype founders.

Friis said,

At the time we launched Skype, broadband capacity was extremely ripe for communication, Mr Friis recalls. Now, three years later, its the same thing for video: you can do TV over the internet in a really good way. TV is a huge medium thats something wed like to be a part of.

He went on saying,

The overall picture is that this is happening. Video is moving online, and people have to find strategies for that.

The rumor is that Skype founders have invested the money that they have gained from eBay by selling Skype for the development of IPTV services.

Published on December 18th, 2006 under , , , ,

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