One must be totally stupid to get Skype back for $1Bb cause VoIP is very incredibly competitive area. Even if Skype's userbase and minutes grow, their revenuve will most likely decline.
Is VOIP really that competitive? I know there are a lot of SIP providers out there and that their services are incredibly commoditized - but a SIP provider Skype is not.
Name a single other app/service with a well-established and globally-known brand name like Skype, where you can download an app, chat for free immediately with nearly everyone online, and also make land-line calls with a really hassle-free purchase process.
Skype is already considerably more expensive than a lot of other VOIP solutions out there - but they succeed much like Apple succeeds, by offering an easy-to-use product tied to a well-known brand for a price that's fair to consumers (but far from cheap). They don't need to race to the bottom like other undifferentiated SIP providers just to get customers.
There's a lot of value in user experience and branding.
When I read that sort of news stating Skype shares 8% of global calling, I laugh out loud at it. The truth is that 99% of Skype users are freebie users who don't pay a cent, one of the reason for this is that Skype premium services are drastically overpriced. Those, who really use VoIP for making phone calls daily, do prefer Betamax clones, as they are not only lots cheaper but also give much better voice quality! I believe Betamax makes more in revenue than Skype can ever dream off, while Betamax is still keeping itself in shadow. The thing is that one should not be a publicly known and estabished brand to make big buck. Believe it or not, Betamax and other SIP providers are killing Skype's business!
A good thing about SIP as open standard is competitiveness and ease of enterance into the business. There is huge number of small SIP providers all around the globe which in sum share a very significant amout of paid international calling traffic, whereas most Skype traffic is still and will be unpaid.
Another problem with Skype as a company is their huge expenses on running the business. Their team is overbloated with marketing and PR staff yet they did not show any progress in marketing for years! They run several headquarters in Europe where they are doomed to payout very high salaries with all the social stuff, etc. IMHO, Skype as a business cannot survive without eBay or any other corporation as big to cover them.
