Top Items:
BBC:
eBay to buy Skype in $2.6bn deal — Online auction site eBay has agreed to buy internet telephone company Skype Technologies in a $2.6bn (£1.4bn) deal. — eBay said it would pay half the amount in cash and the other half in stocks to create "an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine".
Discussion:
TechSpot, Aqute Market Research, Associated Press, Alex Barnett blog and The Silent Penguin
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Rob Hof / TechBeat:
Why eBay Is Buying Skype — Here's my quick take, below, an edited version of which will appear in a few hours at businessweek.com. CEO Meg Whitman & Co. gave an impassioned rationale for the deal. I can certainly see that if Skype meets its ambitious goals, the deal could pay off eventually.
Ross Mayfield / Ross Mayfield's Weblog:
The Simple Reason eBay bought Skype — In two hours, eBay is holding a conference call about buying Skype. I'm visiting the Skype guys in Tallinn a couple of hours later. Lot's of folks are scratching their heads. I have no inside information, nor really want it, but can offer …
Andy Abramson / VoIP Watch:
eBay Buys Skype — The last few days were rather quiet on the Skype Hype front. It seems my first gut reaction about Skype Was right and only over thinking caused a shift. I still view the Skype team as master marketers who played the game to the fullest and have won with eBay making the acquisition.
RELATED ITEMS:
Eric Auchard / Reuters:EBay to buy Skype in deal worth $4.1 bln - source
Discussion:
Jon Arnold's Blog
Times of London:
New legal threat to Google over GMail — Google, the internet search engine, is facing a renewed threat of legal action from a company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to its GMail e-mail service. — Independent International Investment Research, a British company …
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Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Announcing Memorandum to track Tech and Politics/News blogs — Here's some very cool non-Microsoft news that I'm proud to announce (I am the first site to report this news). — I'm on the phone with Gabe Rivera, emperor of Memeorandum. He is, at this very moment, turning on major …
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Note to Mary Jo: Sparkle is no Flash killer — Mary Jo Foley gives her predictions of what's coming at the PDC: More Developers, More Developers, More Developers! — One thing I gotta correct. I used to think that Sparkle was a Flash killer. Hey, that was good hype cause that team hired …
Discussion:
JD on MX
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Yahoo! News:
Tech Notebook: We hear VoIP gets excellent mileage — All the major tech companies — including Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google — have been investing millions of dollars in VoIP, an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, which is a fancy term for making phone calls over the Internet.
Alan Reiter / Wireless Muse:
First impressions: IBM X41 Tablet PC — A mere seven weeks (less three days) after I ordered an IBM/Lenovo X41 Tablet PC — only four weeks longer than the original estimate — it arrived. — Like so many others who ordered the X41 (and who also have been frustrated by Lenovo's rotten logistics …
extremetech.com:
Part I: 64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows — Windows XP Professional x64 edition is clearly not a mainstream product. For example, though you can order Dell Dimension XPS models with XP X64 installed, Dell gives you this rather dire warning when you try to buy a system with the OS installed:
Discussion:
TechSpot
Dan Gillmor / Bayosphere:
eBay Buying Skype: The Privacy Question Grows — Submitted by Dan Gillmor on Mon, 09/12/2005 - 7:25am. … It's official, and eBay will now be adding something to its portfolio: customers' presence online. The possibilities are endless. I didn't get this at first, but now I do.
PC World:
Sun Unveils New Servers — Trio of Sun Fire systems are first of 'Galaxy' class machines aimed at financial industry. — Sun Microsystems is expected to unveil the first members of its long-awaited "industry-standard" 64-bit server family at its quarterly product rollout in New York City Monday.