2005年NPR美国国家公共电台九月-eBay Buys Net Phone Provider Skype

E-Bay has agreed to pay more than 2.6 billion dollars to purchase Internet phone provider Skype. The Internet auction 1 giant is hoping that Skype will boost its auction service by making it easier for users to communicate. NPR's Larry Abramson reports.

In buying Skype , E-Bay is hoping to grab a little buzz from an Internet phenom. Skype has attracted 54 million devoted 2 customers worldwide drawn 3 by the prospect 4 of free and easy phone service over the Internet. If you are wondering what any of this has to do with an Internet auction site, E-Bay says it's about monetizing E-Commerce ，E-Bay’s Henny Dersy translates.

“The integration 5 of Skype into E-Bay may help buyers and sellers communicate directly with one another, which may in turn accelerate e-commerce on eBay .

Why not just talk on the phone now? In the future, E-Bay users might be able to reach Skype partners by simply clicking on a link, they could talk for free and remain anonymous 6 behind their Skype/ usernames. E-Bay says all of this would simplify big international purchases in particular. Asked what type of transactions the company has in mind, CEO Meg Whitman said really big things.

Buying a used bulldozer, for example, could take a high degree of involvement from both buyer and seller because it's expensive and complex. Doing this entirely 7 through E-mail or IM could be difficult. Using Skype would be quicker and easier and very cost-effective.

Bulldozer purchases aside, E-Bay is clearly interested in latching 8 on to the customer loyalty 9 that has helped Skype establish a fanatical fan base, users who spread news of the free phone service primarily by word of mouth. The question according to Marybour Lopez at Forrester Research is will it last.

Just because you've purchased a community, it doesn’t mean the community is going to stay with you as technologies evolve.

Lopez says she's surprised to see E-Bay paying billions for a company that has few assets aside from a clever software design that other companies are already trying to imitate. It reminds her of the bloated prices many Internet companies attracted during the tech bubble of the 1990s. Lopez says E-Bay may have felt competitive pressures to enter the arena 10 for Internet telephone services.

The competition is steep both in the voice arena and just in the arena for a community at large. If you look at Google, Yahoo ,AOL, MSN. All these companies are really targeting the same set of users.

All these companies have launched their own on-line phone services but none has anything approaching Skype’s international user base. E-Bay says it has no immediate 11 plans to change the way Skype works. Calls between / Skype/ users are currently free, the company charges for calls that go to or from regular land line or wireless 12 phones. Skype generated about seven million dollars in revenue in 2004. Compare that to two billion in E-Bay revenues for the first half of this year. Rudy Balker, a telecom analyst 13 with Precursor 14 says E-Bay's high profile among US consumers should be good for Skype which only gets about 10% of its users from the US.

It marries Skype which has penetrated 15 into the technophiles consciousness with eh E-Bay which is sort of the compelling consumer consciousness.

Analysts 16 may disagree about whether the purchase of Skype is a clever pairing or another foolish attempt to merge 17 companies from completely different parts of the economy, but the merger 18 does put new energy behind the rush to Internet-based telephone services.