Pulver: chances are Skype woes are related to eBay internal politics

Internet telephony pioneer and visionary Jeff Pulver believes that a substantial reason for some of Skype's troubles with owner eBay is a result of eBay infighting and a lack of vision of what to do with this asset.

"As it turned out, eBay wasn't able to leverage the disruptive potential of Skype," Jeff writes. "This doesn't mean it was a bad deal. At the time of the deal, in good faith the transaction took place because people believed in the possible."

Here's the money quote:

"Chances are the issues which lead to the write-down of the asset this week had much more to do with the internal politics of eBay and the realities of being part of a multi-billion dollar transaction and the way it affects the lives of the people involved."

Jeff, (who I've worked for), then advised the current eBay team to take seriously a piece of advise he offered the auction giant back on September 12, 2005:

"If you take the elements of eBay, including the micro-payments capability of Paypal and, now, the IP-based communications capabilities of Skype, we may be seeing the formation of the next Reuters."

Well, Jeff's got a point. There have been some toes-in-the-water moves in that direction, but not with the prioritization that a $2.6 billion investment might seem to mandate.