eBay’s Skype IP telephony unit has acquired US
speech-processing company Camino Networks for around $27m (£15.5m)
in stock, to help develop future IP voice services.
The acquisition of the start-up covers both Camino Networks and
its holding company Sonorit, and involves Ebay issuing 700,000
shares to finance the deal.
Skype said it wanted Camino for its engineering team, who would
now work on new Skype technologies.
Skype’s move to buy a whole company to acquire voice talent is a
contrast to the move made by Yahoo, which hired a large number of
Nuance’s development team to build up its voice expertise.
Voice recognition specialist Nuance sued Yahoo for allegedly
stealing its trade secrets, after the team jumped ship to work on
Yahoo’s portal voice services. Yahoo denied the charge.
eBay bought Skype last year for up to $4bn. Skype offers free or
cheap IP-based calls to 70m registered users, and is now moving
into the business market.
