Tag archive: Niklas Zennstrom

The legal tussle between Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis and online auction house eBay looks like it's going to turn into a shooting war: Skype's founders, via their company Joltid, have filed an infringement suit in the Northern California U.S. District Court accusing eBay and a group of its investors of infringing on Joltid's intellectual property on a massive scale through continued operation of Skype… Read More

Back in 2005, online auction site eBay bought VoIP powerhouse Skype amid glowing promises of synergy between the two companies…but this year, admitted that hadn't really worked out and announced plans to spin Skype back off into its own company with an IPO. However, an unresolved technology licensing battle may derail the plans, because it turns out Skype's founders managed to retain control of peer-to-peer technology… Read More

You may well remember that Internet auction giant eBay bought VoIP leader Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, making very rich men of Skype’s co-founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Now, however, relations seem to have fractured, according to Bloomberg. It would appear that one thing eBay didn’t purchase was Skype’s peer-to-peer sharing technology. As eBay prepares a Skype IPO for next year, Zennstrom and Friis have… Read More

About three and a half years ago, online auction giant eBay bought VoIP success story Skype for some $2.6 billion dollars, and espoused dreams of integrating Skype functionality into its ecommerce business so, say, buyers could call up sellers and get details on items before placing a bid, or maybe the company would hold online real-time voice auctions. To hear eBay talk, the possibilities for synergy were endless. Except…for the… Read More

You may remember two years ago when eBay handed over $2.6 billion to purchase VoIP company Skype. People were surprised, and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were a very happy pair.   Now eBay is admitting it might well have paid well over the odds back then, and is writing down the value of its investment in the company. The result? The company is taking charges of $1.43 billion on the purchase. Around $900million… Read More

American broadcast network CBS has announced it will offer programming via the Internet-based video service Joost when it officially launches—which ought to be this quarter. The announcement makes CBS the first broadcast network to sign on with Joost, although it's not Joost's first major partnership: the upstart Internet television service has already announced partnership with Jump TV and with CBS parent company Viacom.… Read More

At a technology conference in California, Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom said VoIP leader Skype and online payments giant PayPal are working together enable Skype users to send each other money via PayPal using the Skype service. Zennstrom declined to offer any details of when the service would be available to Skype users, but indications are that the capability will debut shortly, in part to support Skype Prime, a new community feature… Read More

Just last month, Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom revealed they were working on an Internet-based broadband television service dubbed “The Venice Project.” The idea is to provide high-quality television programming via the Internet, and have the whole thing be supported by advertising—and this be free to users. The global platform would support copyright protection for content owners, while integrating… Read More

Following the $4.1 billion sale of Skype to online auction giant eBay in 2005, Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom invested part of the money in developing “The Venice Project,” an idea for a broadband television service for computers…and quietly went to work. Soon, the wait may be over: a spokesperson for Friis and Zennstrom has confirmed that a private beta test of the product was launched last week, with… Read More

Seems like everyone wants a piece of the VoIP pie: Net2Phone, the newly-acquired Internet telephone division of IDT, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New Jersey against VoIP giant Skype, itself recently acquired by online auction firm eBay. At issue: Net2Phone claims Skype's VoIP technology infringes against a patent granted Net2Phone in August 2000. The patent concerns the exchange of IP addresses to establish data links… Read More

VoIP provider Skype, an eBay company, today announced a new beta version of its latest software for placing telephone calls over the Internet. Also announced was Skypecasts, a new service which allows live, moderated discussions with large groups for free. The beta version of Skype 2.5, said Skype, offers up a number of new features. These include simplified registration for new Skype users, a

VoIP provider Skype yesterday said they'd globally reached a major milestone in the number of registered users who communicate using their service. Skype is available currently in 27 languages and used in almost every country around the world. Skype's magic number, the eBay company said, is now over the 100 million registered users mark. They've achieved this milestone in just two-and-a-half years' time, nearly… Read More

Skype has taken the wraps off Skype for PocketPC 2.0, enabling Skype users to make voice calls anywhere they can connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi and/or 3G mobile networks. The software is available as a free download, and supports a wide range of PocketPC devices, including HP iPAQ hw6900 series Mobile Messenger (plus hx2400, hx2700, rx3700 and hx4700 series devices); the Dell X3i, X30, X50, X50v, x51 and x51v models; and Fujitsu… Read More

VoIP provider Skype and Motorola today announced a new bundled kit which will provide Skype users Bluetooth accessibility through laptop or PC. The Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit, which consists of Motorla's H500 Bluetooth Headset and PC850 PC Adapter, is on sale now for $99.99. The Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit, said Motorola, is the "first Skype-certified Bluetooth headset solution in America". It includes 30… Read More

Skype for Windows Version 1.4, which was previously released as beta software last month adds a number of new features such as increased mobility options, new personalized ring tones, sounds andpictures, improved sound quality (about time eh?) and more ways to connect to your friends and family. Other new features include a new Call Forwarding service that will allow callers to forwardincoming Skype calls to another Skype name or up to three… Read More