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eBay to nab Skype for $2.6 billion
September 12, 2005 -
Sony: The 'V' in VoIP also stands for video
June 1, 2005
The move comes as traditional phone companies are losing their grip on services that were once theirs exclusively. In September, auction powerhouse eBay announced that it had agreed to pay $2.6 billion for Net telephone provider Skype, one of the premiere VoIP, or voice over Internet Protocol, companies. eBay said it plans to boost communications between buyers and sellers.
Yahoo, AOL and others also offer video-calling services similar to IVE. Video-phone services have long been touted by technology enthusiasts but have struggled to attract a mainstream audience.
In June, Sony signaled that it might offer a consumer telephone offering, when it rolled out an IVE service aimed at businesses. Sony is working with Glowpoint, a Hillside, N.J.-based video-phone service provider known for its "All You Can See" unlimited video dialing plans and easy-to-use services, which include features such as live video operators and video-call mailboxes. Sony said it will also offer to connect IVE users to landlines and cell phones for a monthly fee of $9.95.
Sony executives did not immediately return calls for comment.
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fiasco has stuck in my mind, for sure - and I won't be buying
anything Sony sells.
I hope the person at Sony Entertainment that mandated the
rootkit was fired. Knowing the record industry, they were
probably promoted, much to the consternation of Sony's
Consumer Electronics division.
Too bad for the CE folks. Your entertainment division has cost
you at least $1500.00 in this house. The new TV? Not a Sony.
With regards to the Internet phone deal, it's a big yawn.
Windows-only, closed protocol, etc. etc. et al.
I plan to try out IVE's free computer-to-computer voice and video to get a sense of the quality. Their FAQ suggests a video rate of 30 frames per second (fps). I have been consistently disappointed by the computer-to-computer voice and video quality of Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo's video offering is pathetic -- a choppy, tiny 1 fps connection. Skype/Spontania gives a decent 15-20 fps.
Not to mention do you really want to give the benefit of the doubt to a company that couldn't detect the security flaw in their DRM software (or probably knew, but didn't care enough about their customers to spend the money fixing it until it got very nasty in public)?
(Yeah I know, let's not bring up Windows in this... that's a whole different topic!)
Ted
Whatever we see, touch, feel and experience will soon be equipped with a digital interface to allow maximum control and tweaking for the senses.
Sony a commercial consumer service - not gonna happen.
I've ditched Sony for good! My carpool driver has bugged me for a few months about giving him my PS2 in lieu of gas/tolls. After Sony's RootKit I packed the PS2 up with all my addons and gave it to him the next day... I guess I'll give the XBox 360 a try! I pulled out my Sony DVD-R (was going to replace it with a Sony DVD-RW) and instead replaced it with a Pioneer DVD-RW yesterday. I am NOT gonna trust Sony with any firmware updates to my hardware...nor the existing firmware already on it! God only knows what is/will be hidden in there!
I WILL NOT buy from a company that fcuks over it's customers. They cry all day about how people are violating there IP rights but then turn around and violate their customers' property/privacy rights by pulling this stunt. I hope the not only lose in the pending lawsuits but I hope they lose SO BIG that NO other company will ever think of doing something like this that is so unethical and illegal ever again!
Sony just wasted all the billions of dollars they have ever spent building consumer rapport and trust. It's gonna be a long time before I trust them again.
--sidenote: The mere fact that Sony is backing Blu-Ray now makes me suspicious of this whole format! A format that I was excited to see and believed in. Anything that speaks of Sony now is suspect with me.
That sounds like a good date to start this.
Just say "NO!" to NEC too.
The software "scare" has to do with music cds that came from Sony BMG (sony music) which is one small branch of the Sony corporation. Also, the software which has caused the issues was created by a company called First4Internet.
I'm excited about the new voip-video frontier and I really doubt that any boogeymen will be popping up in my video screen. ...and I severely doubt that Sony would risk that sourt of negetive coverage again.
- Why bother????
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by Earl Benser
November 19, 2005 9:59 AM PST
- ......... Skype does it better
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Reply to this comment
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- Compelling argument
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by ThunderDog
November 21, 2005 9:11 AM PST
- You raise a compelling argument... As far as I know Skype doesn't even offer a real video service yet of their own. I don't think they do it better because they don't even do it yet.
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See all 26 Comments >>I'm really interested in what the new Sony product has to offer and what it will grow into. The only negative thing that I see is people posting about the rootkit issue, but anyone who has taken 5 minutes to research that topic would know that it has no relevance.
The thing that I truly find to be most scary is that a company called Isdecisions has made a program called "skypekiller", which prevents Skype from working on networks. Now, why would skypekiller be making millions of dollars protecting networks from "Skype risk"? Makes ya wonder...