Following today's earlier post on the beginning of Skype's metamorphosis, I have come across a couple of additional links that are worth noting:

Thomas Crampton's exclusive interview with Niklas: Zennstrom defends Skype while stepping down:

Zennstrom vigorously defended Skype’s performance, saying that few companies have ever grown a user base so quickly and warning against quick monetization of users drawn to a free service.
“Some people have been critical of Skype, but I am very proud of the company’s growth,” Zennstrom said in a telephone interview with ThomasCrampton.com. “Very few companies can claim to match the growth trajectory Skype is on and continues to be on.”

In conjunction with today's announcements, eBay had to file an 8-K with the SEC entitled "Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement" . A couple of interesting points to note:

• Should eBay sell what amounts to a controlling interest in Skype prior to March 31, 2008, Niklas and his fellow shareholders of record would receive an additional €138,411,300 (~$195 million) as a term of the reported "Material Definitive Agreement" announced today.
• And today's announcement came as an outcome of eBay's annual strategic planning exercise:

This charge is the result of the updated long-term financial outlook for Skype developed as part of eBay's strategic planning cycle conducted annually during its third quarter. This updated financial outlook for Skype was then reviewed in conjunction with eBay's annual goodwill impairment testing that is undertaken as of August 31st of each year.

And there's lots of "I told you so" and "shoot from the hip" commentary that can be found via Techmeme. I say they don't know the whole story at Skype (and certainly C-level management has to take responsibility for the failure to communicate the story).

While today eBay has effectively taken their licks, as Niklas implies, Skype has built up some valuable employee teams, assets, services and business relationships; Phil, Andy and I witnessed some of that last week at the Skype Developer Event in San Jose. As Niklas also states Skype has become profitable. But, as Andy says, it will take a Telco 2.0 executive to leverage all this for most value for eBay shareholders. More on that tomorrow.

Update: Thomas Howe has inadvertently described a Telco 2.0 company in "Dear Carriers; They Didn't Need You" (where he even references the Skype mashup contest).

Tags: Skype, Niklas Zennstrom, Thomas Crampton, Andy Abramson, eBay