Very very disturbing news!

Those of us who have been very contented users of the Skype Voice Over Internet Service have reason to be very worried. Many American companies are trying to buy over this successful company. The latest which was reported in The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal today is the offer by Ebay.

Ebay appears to have made a cash offer of between US $2 and 3 billion. New York Times reported a figure of US $5 billion.

I had suggested many months ago to Google that they should be the one to integrate Skype into their Personalised Web Service. But Google chose rather to introduce a very stunted Talk Service losing a golden opportunity to score over Microsoft, Yahoo, and even Apple, who with their iChat have now entered the Mobile Phone market in conjunction with the Motorola Rokr phone and the Cingular Phone Service. Apple have integrated iTunes into this new mobile phone and it will not be long before they also integrate iPhoto into the camera phone version which must be now under intensive development.

Just at this moment there are over 3.25 million people actually using the Skype service. Registered users may be double or even treble this.

I have been talk to granddaughter Asha in England for hours at no cost. I will be talking to grandson Samuel who has now moved to Newcastle. I have been speaking at no cost to friends and relatives in India, UK and USA for many many months. I have introduced Skype to many of my friends. The technology is just perfect, especially on the Macintosh Apple platform, as the sound, input and output, is even better than a normal fixed line or mobile phone.

With the Americans trying to edge in to take over Skype, the free service will probably vanish as whatever the Americans touch means death and destruction in terms of the have-nots.