Will a decreasing Ebay stock figures force Ebay to sell out Skype and it’s 1 billion users to the highest bidder ?

Remember this paragraph "…stock is down to $23.25 and seems to have gone below the $24 support level that has been there this year.…. There's lots of speculation of layoffs at eBay right now.  At the GS conference, Swan was asked about the employees. He mentioned there are 16k and the rev/employee has gone up but they are always looking at it.

Skype - said it is doing well but they are "still evaluating Skype's fit with eBay" - this could be foreshadowing a sale of Skype which Donahoe told FT earlier in the year is something they would do if it's not a fit. There's lots of speculation of layoffs at eBay right now.  At the GS conference, Swan was asked about the employees. He mentioned there are 16k and the rev/employee has gone up but they are always looking at it.

Skype - said it is doing well but they are "still evaluating Skype's fit with eBay" - this could be foreshadowing a sale of Skype which Donahoe told FT earlier in the year is something they would do if it's not a fit." Source : eBay: Triple Whammy Weighs on Stock Price

My take is very simple : I think that Skype is steadily on it's way to become the Netscape company among the IM/VoIP systems if they don't rapidly change their "obfuscated" company culture. They have lost their soul and if they are not careful the body will follow too. If there is a rot in the system, better take it out fast, before it spreads…. I also don't believe that a company such as Skype with a slogin "sharing is good" and "telephony must be free" can easily convert 380 million (who not state 1 billion, since the 380 is a fake figure anyways) to paying customers… without establishing different routines. Let's not forget that the reason why most of use Skype is because we don't want to pay for telephony, we also don't want to pay for VoIP and by the way, thanks for the great free high quality video…

Tell me where is the business model ? where is the revenue ? It seems to me that the Skype company is not adopting itself fast enough, which does not mean that their software is not adopting, but the last year we have seen decreased innovation, and projects that were stopped and again some major body parts of Skype that have left…

Somebody should try to interview those people and ask them why they left… That would tell more about the health of Skype than any figure.

In mean time keep calling for free, it's a great peace of software and what does not kill Skype will make it stronger. Good luck (with the Ebay shares too). I wish that Google would buy Skype