Skype has experienced rapid growth in popular usage since the launch of its services. The company was acquired by eBay in September 2005 for $2.6 billion.eBay has written Skype down to $1.7 billion on its books and announced a public stock offering for 2010 to spin Skype off as a separate company.Some media outlets have characterized the proposed sale and ongoing provision of Skype as being under threat, because of a software licensing dispute with the original creators.On September 1, 2009, a group of investors led by Silver Lake bought 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion.
Skype allows users to communicate by both voice, and more traditional textual instant messaging. Voice chat allows both calling a single user and conference calling. It uses a proprietary codec. Skype's text chat client allows group chats, emoticons, storing chat history, offline messaging and (in recent versions) editing of previous messages. The usual gamut of features familiar to instant messaging users - such as user profiles, online status indicators, and so on - is also included.
SkypeIn allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by regular phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.A Skype user can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country. Some jurisdictions, including France, Germany and South Africa, forbid the registration of their telephone numbers to anyone without a physical presence or residency in the country.[citation needed].
Video conferencing between two users was introduced in January 2006 for the Windows and Mac OS X platform clients. Skype 2.0 for Linux, released on March 13, 2008, also features support for video conferencing.
Skype for Windows, starting with version 3.6.0.216, supports "High Quality Video" with quality and features, e.g., full-screen and screen-in-screen modes, similar to those of mid-range videoconferencing systems. Skype audio conferences currently support up to 25 people at a time, including the host.
A discontinued feature called "Skypecasting" allowed recordings of Skype voice over IP voice calls and teleconferences to be used as podcasts, which allow audio or video content to be syndicated over the Internet. Skype launched its "Skypecasts Beta" service in 2006. It remained in beta until its end. Skypecasts hosted public conference calls, up to 100 people at a time. Unlike ordinary Skype p2p conference calls, Skypecasts supported moderation features suitable for panel discussions, lectures, and town hall forums. Skype operated a directory of public Skypecasts. On August 26, 2008, Skype announced that Skypecasts would be discontinued beginning September 1, 2008.Skypecasts were shut down without any concrete explanation on 1 September 2008 at 12:00 UTC.
Skype does not provide the ability to call emergency numbers such as 911 in the United States and Canada, 000 in Australia, 112 in Europe, or 999 in the UK.The FCC has ruled that, for the purposes of section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, Skype is not an "interconnected VoIP provider".As a result, the U.S. National Emergency Number Association recommends that all VoIP users have an analog line available as a backup.
