Digital Media

Skype's founders are reportedly encountering turbulence in striking a deal with eBay to buy back the Internet phone service, despite the financial backing from a group of large private equity firms, according to The Wall Street Journal.

KKR, Warburg Pincus, Elevation Partners, and Providence are reportedly teaming up with founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who reportedly are interested in repurchasing their company from eBay.

But eBay and the founders' group face a wide gap on price, the Journal reported, and a deal involving the private equity firms appears unlikely.

The private equity firms are reportedly interested in kicking in $1 billion toward the total purchase price, according to the report, which noted it remained unclear on the total bid price.

Back in 2005, for $2.6 billion, asserting that it would allow customers to discuss their transactions in real-time.

eBay has since publicly stated there are few synergies between the companies and that it would be willing to sell off Skype for the right price.

If you don't like the new look, you can now switch to Skype's classic view.

(Credit: Skype)

Skype 4.0 beta 2 (download) has done a lot of growing since the first beta for Windows rolled out this past June. While that release showed some success reorganizing Skype's services, we predicted that folks would protest the gawky layout. We were right.

The ability to switch into the classic compact view is one concession to user demand that shows up in Skype 4.0 beta 2. Now you can toggle between the expanded default view that fuses the contact list and active conversation, and the traditional view, which breaks them into separate windows. This change definitely improves the way users will experience this version of the VoIP calling application, though we think it's something Skype should have implemented from the start.

Skype's goals with 4.0 beta

Skype envisions a less cluttered version 4.0 that's easier for novices to pick up without any prior experience. Skype also wants the redesign to unearth functions other than VoIP calling to get more people placing video calls, using Skype's IM, and buying credit for its premium PC-to-landline calling and texting plan, Skype Out.

According to Skype's product manager for Windows, Michael Bartlett, the changes have been mostly successful, though people aren't glomming on to IM like Skype had hoped, and the application still doesn't have everything users have been asking for.

Changes in 4.0 beta 2
Still, Skype 4.0 beta 2 answers requests to instate an optional compact view, notifications for missed calls and incoming messages, and the ability to group contacts together. Besides switching views, you'll be able to resize most elements within the program window by dragging them, your profile photo or the size of the video screen on a video call included. Both are welcome additions that grant you more control over Skype's display.

In this beta, message alerts pop up in the system tray.

(Credit: Skype)

Since users complained of missing too many messages in 4.0 beta 1, the second beta now displays an orange notification icon in your system tray whenever you receive a new message. A panel will also light up in the app's conversation window.

In other changes, the ability to simply drag and drop files into the conversation window has returned. So has the feature to organize contacts into groups, though the treatment differs in Skype 4.0 beta 2. Skype will honor any groups you've previously established (like coworkers), but also includes categories based on status, such as who is currently online, who you've recently contacted, and who you're trying to add as a friend. We don't personally find all these categories relevant, but you can easily delete any you don't want and create your own in the contacts tab. We give Skype kudos for letting us populate categories by dragging and dropping in names from the master list.

View contacts by Skype's categories, or delete them and add your own.

(Credit: Skype)

Still to come: Skype 4.0 beta 3
Skype 4.0 beta has really shaped up in this release, adding many features that usefully let the caller customize the display. Yet the work isn't done. Skype plans to release one more beta before Skype 4.0 is deemed ready for prime time, and it will include call history, birthday reminders, and public chats, plus other changes that beta users will demand in chorus.

It's interesting that Skype choses to release three betas to users' scrutiny before unveiling the final version. The tactic is one we've just seen with well-established communications appYahoo Messenger, which just released version 9.0 after two public beta cycles, and with Windows Live Messenger beta, which advertises the competing messenger's new look. It could be risky laying out a rough draft of your software that's inevitably flawed, but in terms of starting a discussion with users and gaining valuable market research for free, it seems to be working just fine.

Intel's remote wake-up chip could finally turn PCs into phones.

One of the biggest drawbacks of current PC-based Internet phone services like Skype, which allow people to make phone calls from their computers over the Internet for free or for reduced fees, is that you can't receive calls when the computer is turned off. But that is changing with a new chipset introduced by Intel Thursday that allows computers to wake from "sleep" to accept calls and do other tasks like accept downloaded content.

Intel has teamed up with JaJah, a California-based voice over IP start-up, to allow JaJah users to receive calls on their PCs when their computers are in "sleep mode."

"The Intel technology turns the PC into a PBX for the home," said Trevor Healy, CEO of JaJah. "With the JaJah soft client you can plug in any USB-enabled phone and start receiving inbound calls anytime."

The deal with Intel also means that JaJah technology will come already configured into certain PCs so that users don't have to download any software to make Web calls. This makes it different from other PC-based IP telephony services, like Skype, which require users to download a software client. Jajah provides users with local phone numbers and routes calls over the Internet to allow users to call any fixed or mobile phone anywhere in the world for a fraction of what they would normally pay.

JaJah was the first telecommunications partner that Intel selected to be used with its new Remote Wake technology. JaJah with more than 10 million subscribers is small potatoes compared with the biggest name in PC-based VoIP, Skype, which boasts over 300 million subscribers. But Intel's venture arm is an investor in JaJah, pouring $20 million into the company in May 2007.

That said, Intel said that the Remote Wake technology could work with any VoIP service.

"Intel Capital invested in JaJah, so this extends that relationship," said Joe Van De Water, Intel's director of consumer product marketing. "But the Remote Wake technology is open. There is a software development kit. So there's no reason that other VoIP providers like Skype couldn't use this."

Skype didn't respond to requests for comment.

While Remote Wake could make it easier to use a PC as a phone, it could also help make online video services work more efficiently. Orb Networks and CyberLink, two online content services, are also working with Intel to use the technology to work with their services so that songs, photos, videos, or other content can be downloaded onto PCs during off-peak hours. Intel is also hoping to work with PC services that do remote back-up or security updates so they can use the technology to offer their services during off-hours when there is less congestion on the network.