Skype is a true success story, founded just seven years ago in 2003 by Scandinavian entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstromand and Janus Friis. In 2005 they sold the company to eBay for $1.9B in cash. eBay kept the company growing and in November, 2009 sold Skype to a private consortium, valued at $2.75 Billion with Zennstrom and Friis as part of the consortium (eBay still holding about 30%). By mid 2010, there were over 500 million registered Skype users. They’re now planning to go public. Initially, Skype was primarily used to place international calls for free to other Skype users or to landlines at reduced rates that were on a par with a calling card. It really caught on for connecting with family and friends living abroad. Over the years, Skype has been building steadily on its products and for going after business, including mobile users. Skype has been very aggressive going after the smartphone market and have clients for the iPhone, Blackberry OS, Linux, Android and Symbian platforms.
