p2pnet - rss feed: ‘eBay is going down’
p2p news / p2pnet: A famous p2p VoIP application (Yup - you guessed it), coupled with eBay’s unquenchable lust to be more than it is (or isn’t, depending on your perspective), is about to spell the company’s demise, declares Dana Blankehorn on his Corante column.
Large corporations must either find a way to secure Skype or banish it from their networks, says Smart House Magazine in a registration-required link pointing to a study by Canada’s Info-Tech.
In “Five Reason’s To Ban Skype,” Info-Tech says Skype is “is just too insecure for corporate networks and organisations that have already banned peer-to-peer applications such as Instant Messaging should also look at banning Skype,” says Smart House, going on that Info-Tech estimates a third of the 53 million registered Skypers are business users.
But, “the software is believed to be too insecure for corporate networks because it’s too firewall-friendly. Skype doesn’t use established VoIP standards …”
With the above, and other factors, in mind, “eBay is going down,” says Blakenhorn unequivocally. “The collapse of its stock price may be followed by the collapse of the entire company. Certainly a fire sale is in the offing.”
And that, in turn, is because, “eBay has bought itself an enormous political problem with Skype, a fight it can’t win because of its diminishing goodwill,” he says, crediting Info-Tech research analyst Ross Armstrong for cluing him in
Info-Tec has “just published a paper telling corporations in no uncertain terms to turn Skype off,” says the Corante story. “It’s insecure, it’s like peer-to-peer, the report said.”
Thus, Blankehorn emailed Armstrong and, “we had a nice virtual discussion about it” and according to Ross, “Skype is now where IM was a few years ago; that is, a blossoming technology with tremendous potential, but with disclosed vulnerabilities that could pose a risk to the enterprise unless it is controlled, not just by technology, but also by policies and acceptable use.”
So why, asked Blankenhorn, did eBay buy it? “I don’t think eBay even knows…” opines Ross. “Even if Skype were problem free eBay would still face an enormous political battle to get it accepted.”
Blakenhorn says foreign regulators are even now working on “technical solutions that prevent it from being used (along with peer-to-peer technolgies) and U.S. broadband operators are now demanding control of their networks in order to keep their customers from using it, too.
“In fighting this political battle, however, eBay puts its whole company on the line, its entire reputation, and it must stand with people who are, on the whole, out of power. They may have moral and technological right on their side, but this is not the position you like your company in when you’ve just paid 60 times earnings for the ride. It’s like paying for a ride on a cruise ship and suddenly finding yourself alongside the Somali pirates, told to man a gun.”
And eBay internal problems will provide further fuel for the fire sale.
“Its market reputation has been suffering ever since it bought Paypal, frankly,” Blakenhorn states. “Each time it allows the auction of something dicey it gets hammered, and each time it bans an auction, or someone is ripped-off in one, it gets hammered. The company just doesn’t have enough cops on its internal beat to keep its users safe from one another.”
Then there are those ads. Amazon doesn’t advertise, Google doesn’t advertise.
“You advertise in order to gain new customers” so “Why is it doing that if it has a ‘natural monopoly,’ as MarketWatch claimed just last month?”
Here’s why, says Blakenhorn ——– “You’ve got a company facing increased churn, a steadily-declining public image, a political battle, and with a 60x stock to protect. I don’t think George W. Bush has so many problems.”
See:-
Corante - The Fall of eBay, November 11, 2005
November 13th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
crap. i just opened an ebay account just in case i might want to sell something - and i don’t even have a credit card!
November 13th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
going on that Info-Tech estimates a third of the 53 million registered Skypers are business users.
Its market reputation has been suffering ever since it bought Paypal,
Then there are those ads. Amazon doesn’t advertise, Google doesn’t advertise.
——————————–
Why doesn’t Slyck show the Skype p2p population then if it is really 53 million? Because it’s not.
If its reputation has been suffering ever since it purchased Paypal, then why were there so many instant millionares (because of stock prices) when it bought Paypal?
Since when does Amazon and Google not advertise. Hell, I bought a new pc and it already had the google toolbar in it. Most of the sites that I go to have something to do with Google. Just look above this page and you will see the Google search bar. Propaganda of course this it. Too bad people can’t be honest these days.
November 14th, 2005 at 12:03 am
ebay is crap and so is paypal
November 14th, 2005 at 1:41 am
I know, I know. But people (dumb people) like my sister loves using it!! Go figure.
As long as there is a sizable number of dumb people, eBay will live (albeit barely)…
November 14th, 2005 at 4:43 am
An hour before I logged on to p2pnet.net, I had sent a scathing letter to eBay demanding that they remove my name and personal information from their files, that they cease sending me email, that they cease placing cookies on my computer, etc. I finally got fed up with their supercilious condescension toward their customers (a lot like the entainmnet cartel).
Then, checking in with p2pnet, I find the glorious news that eBay might be going down!!! Great! Hurray for the little folk!!
Generally speaking, a person does not gain anything by shopping on eBay. Sellers either set the opening “bid” too high, or they pad the shipping and handling fees beyond reason. Customer Service sucks. And I’m still not convinced that they don’t have some way of artifically jacking up the bids.
Nonetheless, I feel so much better having dumped all that garbage.
November 14th, 2005 at 8:37 am
I do think to stock prices will go down
but ebay will keep on going….
November 14th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Ebay can be very good, i personally have saved thousands of pounds buying on ebay and equally have made thousands selling on it, sure if you are a newbie to it you will probably get ripped off as most people dont check feedback etc , unfort ebay is let down by absolutely no customer service to speak of and paypal is dire , they make money on every transaction and still remain shit, skype is a huge lemon and i knew this would happen before they bought it , they should stick to what they initially started doing and that is online auctions and instead of waisting money on crap such as skype they should spend the money on improving their service.
November 14th, 2005 at 11:21 am
ha ha, most of you don’t know about Skype….
Let me tell you something interesting. Skype was a “pet project” of some powerful ***nists that did the same thing with ENRON.
You guys remember Enron right?!
Well, ENRON was not about “accounting scandal to deflect against price manipulations” as much as it was “about accounting scandal to hide money laundering”…. and indeed it worked for those *****ist bastards.
They “sold” worthless pieces of paper to the unknowing public, meanwhile using “layered accounting” (you gotta study accounting tricks more) they SWINDLED the money, while the “courts” and “Feds” PRETEND to FIGHT for the people.
It fooled just about EVERYBODY!!! “By way of deception….” indeed. The same thing is happening again and again and again. Watch out for the (1) credit bubble, (2) real estate bubble, and (3) their pet “distribution” monopoly, the $33 billion NET “piracy” campaign. Yeah, that’s how much their make NET just from “international revenues.” (which is a VERY SMALL fraction of their total REVENUE — until you know the “insides” you won’t understand why they FEAR peer-to-peer (or person-to-person) technology. It threatens their “distribution” chain, just like a drug dealer)