Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave the green light to Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, the Internet telephony company. Skype Journal reports that the FTC go ahead comes at a time when many key senior executives have left or have been asked to leave the company.
Skype senior staff David Gurlé, Christopher Dean, Russ Shaw, Don Albert, Doug Bewsher, and Anne Gillespie are leaving Skype or have left. (Skype Journal)
Bloomberg News reports that Ramu Sunkara and Allyson Campa who joined the company as part of the Qik acquisition have been let go. Bloomberg also says that senior executives have been “cut” because it is “a move that reduces the value of their payout.”
If that is indeed the case, this is a pretty short sighted strategy and it is only going to make integration of Skype into Microsoft more difficult. It seems that this is a pennywise, pound foolish kind of a move, that in the end is going to erode the value of the Skype franchise.
If Skype hits an air pocket, a lot of companies are waiting to pick up the slack. Nimbuzz, for example, already has 50 million users. Google has been becoming bolder with its GoogleVoice offering, even though it is still very US centric.
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