John Donahoe, the eBay chief executive, is doing nothing to dispel ongoing speculation that the company is planning to put Skype, the Internet calling service it bought four years ago for $3 billion, on the block.
When Donahoe took over as eBay’s chief in January 2008, he said he wanted to take time to evaluate any synergies between Skype and eBay.
But at an event eBay held on Wednesday in San Jose for analysts and investors at its PayPal headquarters, Donahoe said that eBay was wrong in assuming that Skype would “enhance communication between buyers and sellers and reduce friction in the eBay marketplace and payments.”
He also said eBay “was done apologizing” for buying the calling service and that it was a great standalone business.
But when asked if Skype was for sale, Donahoe smiled and declined to answer directly.
Meanwhile in a separate presentation, Skype’s president, Josh Silverman, said Skype had posted a 20 percent net income last year, on $550 million in sales in 2008. Silverman predicted that the calling service’s sales would more than double to more than $1 billion in 2011.
When asked if the fact that the company included 2011 projections for Skype in its presentation meant eBay was counting on owning the company until then, Donahoe said it “doesn’t mean anything.”
Skype’s value may have just taken a hit since Google on Thursday stepped up its attack on the telecommunications industry with a free service called Google Voice that, if successful, could chip away at Skype’s revenue.
Google Voice is an expanded version of a service previously known as GrandCentral, a start-up that Google acquired 20 months ago. It is intended to simplify the way people handle phone calls, voice mail and text messages. The service will initially be made available only to existing GrandCentral subscribers; Google says the general…