eBay's Internet telephony company Skype has acquired Sonorit Holding AS and its US subsidiary Camino Networks, Inc., a provider of voice technology for the Internet. eBay said the acquisition will allow Skype to add some of the leading experts in online voice engineering to its own team of technologists to help design and develop Skype for the future.
"We're excited about bringing the talented Camino Networks team to Skype," said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype CEO and co-founder. "They will add considerable expertise to our own world-class technology team."
"Camino Networks is focused on innovating for next-generation voice services," said Jonathan Christensen, President and CEO of Camino Networks, Inc. "Joining Skype gives us access to the best platform for bringing our technology to users."
Skype will be on hand at the eBay Developers Conference in Las Vegas in June. eBay will devote a technical track to Skype development, including a session called "Using Skype to improve Buyer/Seller communication." Skype will also hold two hands-on training labs: "Getting started building Skype applications" and "Using the App2App messaging API."
eBay acquired Skype last Fall for $2.5 billion plus potential performance-based consideration comprised of $1.3 billion in cash and the value of 32.8 million shares of eBay stock.
Skype has agreed to acquire all outstanding securities of Sonorit for approximately 700,000 shares of eBay stock. Based on the stock price as of April 10, 2006, the transaction is valued at approximately $27 million.
http://www.skype.com
