Maybe I've missed something, but what has changed in the two years since eBay spun off Skype at a valuation of < $3B to make it worth more than $7 billion today?
http://skypenumerology.blogspot.com/2011/04/summer-recession...
2. The western world is slowly pulling itself out of a recession right now, rather than two years ago when we were on the other side and already sliding down. This will help any good plan to monetise the service further if that is MS's goal (it is probably their secondary goal).
3. Social networking, while already the "big thing" two years ago has grown considerably and is a fertile battleground for the big names. Competing in this market is presumably MS's primary driver for the purchase.
4. Facebook were strongly rumoured to want Skype or something similar to integrate with its current offerings and Google already has Google Talk (though it only has a fraction of the market awareness of Skype). So for MS to compete in that area they would have two choices: put up a big enough offer for Skype to scupper anyone else (particularly facebook, because if they got it MS would be competing against two entrenched brands in the same beast) buying it, or make their own (or buy something else) and have to compete against the entrenched ubiquitous brand in the area (some people talk of making an Internet call as "skyping" someone).
The valuation seems quite a bit high to my untrained eye, but MS buying Skype makes sense and perhaps that is simply the price they had to pay to get it. It isn't like MS is short of a bob or two.
That represents a profit of 1.45 or 1.95b over 6 years or $320m a year. (If MS didn't buy eBay's share, then they are currently at a 0.6-1.1b loss on their Skype investment excluding whatever that 30% is worth.) Presumably eBay had better opportunities for 2-3b of capital.
I wouldn't presume Ebay had better uses for the capital though. Skype has clearly had a faster rate of growth than Ebay. (although, paying an effing dividend would in my personal opinion be better than maintaining a thirty percent share of a telephone company)
Not by that much, but it's certainly changed.
That, and ebay never figured out how to monetize it. MS likely has some plans in place to aggressively make money from it. I'm a skype subscriber, and probably will continue to be one, assuming they keep at least the same level of support for Macs.
Since the owners are almost all US-based (I think), fluctuation in the dollar against foreign markets shouldn't have much impact on Skype's pricing. Even so, the dollar's value against the Euro hasn't hardly changed at all: eBay announced their sale of Skype on September 1, when 1 USD = 0.7 EUR. Today. 1 USD = 0.6975 EUR.
I think the higher price is partially because MS may have a strong monetization plan in place and they don't want anyone else to get it.
Sept 1: 1 USD = 1.05 CAD
Now: 1 USD = 0.96 CAD
Is not fluctuations against foreign market, inflation is rampant, that means that is something has the same value,(a company) you need to pay more dollars for it.
Dollar has gone down against commodities(sugar, rice, oil, gold, copper...) because FED is printing dollars like there is no tomorrow. Europe is doing the same for Euro(because if they do not Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland burn).
2) When it was spun off by eBay, Skype acquired the IP of their P2P technology from the founders. This makes it more attractive to suitors
3) Skype has filed for an IPO, which would give its valuation a premium
These are the reasons that make Skype more valuable now than when it was spun off by eBay. If you add a bidding war between Facebook, Google and Microsoft, it explains the $7 billion valuation.
However, I agree that $7B is too much for Skype, unless there are great synergies for the acquirer.