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eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is building software to replace the technology for its online phone service Skype, according to reports Wednesday.
The online peer-to-peer business site said the move is to get around a licensing dispute with Skype’s founders, who have threatened to revoke the site’s technology.
The new software will be expensive and might not work, EBay said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. The company said it might have to shut down Skype if the dispute with the founders isn’t resolved.
The dispute threatens to interfere with plans by EBay Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe to take Skype public in the first half of 2010, according to Bloomberg. EBay bought Skype in 2005, but the rights to some of its so-called peer-to-peer technology remain with the founders.
EBay is suing Joltid Ltd., a company owned by Skype’s founders, to prevent them from pulling the technology that runs the service. A trial is scheduled for June.
Skype, which started in 2002, allows people to make calls from their computers to land lines and mobile phones, as well as other computers. It makes money when users call regular phones, set up voicemail and use text-messaging services. Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis also created the file-sharing software Kazaa.
Skype’s revenue grew 25 percent to $170 million in the second quarter, EBay reported this month. It has more than 480 million users and is the largest provider of international calls, according to research firm TeleGeography in
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