Is Skype already sold?

Here’s a sure sign that Skype, formerly heralded as the future savior of Ebay, has left the building:

And now Skype is being downright disintegrated from eBay’s services, starting with the UK website. This is what the dry announcement message reads (emphasis ours):

eBay is discontinuing Skype voice and chat buttons in listings as of 10th June 2009 in an effort to remove features with limited buyer and seller usage.

This change does not require any action on your part. We are just notifying you that as of June 10, you will no longer see the Skype voice and chat options when you list new items, they will not be included on the new item page, and they will no longer appear in your existing listings.

We appreciate your continued commitment to good communications with your customers.

Regards,
The eBay Team

(Tech Crunch)

Skype is another example of how CE’O’s often create corporate Frankensteins that never add up to the sum of their parts, let alone adding up to more.  The real profit in all of the mega deals we’re seen over the last couple of decades in tech has been in the making of the deals, not in creating shareholder value. Until shareholders wise up and stop appointing boards and CEO’s who can profit more from market arbitration than running the business, these so called “honest mistakes” will continue. Thinks Ebay’s the only example? Those who presided over the Time / Warner /AOL and HP/Compaq fiasco’s profited handsomely too. In every case, the shareholders have lost value, and the customer has not been served.