Skype Business Strategy

We all wonder how Skype will make money and give their investors a attractive return on investment. Andy Abramson hopes some VC's helps him to resolve the mystery.

VC on Skype: A Wolf In Sheeps Clothing or A Rooster In The Hen House

I half thought about blogging the recent E-Commerce News item about Skype and what one of their VC's had to say but decided to wait for those more schooled in the VC world to comment. Malik's stint as an investment banker and VC makes him the perfect commentator on this story. Now I'm only waiting for Ted Shelton, another one of the insightful and rightful bloggers who have enough of what it takes to really get under the hood of the hype to tell, not sell, the story.

Andy Abramsom refers to VC Steve Jurvetson in eCommerce Times.

"One day, we will look back and wonder why we ever paid for phone service, in the same way that we now look back and wonder why we ever paid for e-mail," says Steve Jurvetson, a managing partner at venture-capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His firm was one of the early investors in both Hotmail and Skype. Jurvetson and other investors see Skype as a massive multibillion-dollar business ultimately and hope it will be the next big tech IPO after search-engine Google goes public this month (eCommerce Times, August 14, 2004)."

Of course Steve Jurvetson isn't telling you the complete story. Free phone service is just a small piece of the business strategy of Skype (see wednesday July, 28th of this weblog).

Here is maybe another piece of the profit pattern of Skype:
Soon Skype will develop some amazing new functionality, which is only available in a premium version, but will cost just a few extra euro’s … Another possiblity to make profit happen.