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To: ~digs who wrote (1505)	9/16/2005 8:35:41 PM
From: ~digs	Respond to of 7944

Troubling Exits At Microsoft biz.yahoo.com Microsoft is losing some of its most creative managers, marketers, and software developers. Lenn Pryor, director of platform evangelism, left for Internet phone startup Skype Technologies, now being acquired by eBay (EBAY). Stephen Walli, who worked in the unit set up to parry the open-source threat, split for an open-source consulting firm. A long list of talent has moved to Google, a trip made easier by the company's recent establishment of an office in nearby Kirkland, Wash. Joe Beda and Gary Burd, respected engineers, left and helped set up the instant messaging service Google Talk. Mark Lucovsky, who had been named one of Microsoft's 16 Distinguished Engineers, defected to Google last November. He blogged that Microsoft's size is getting in its way. "I am not sure I believe anymore that Microsoft knows how to ship software," he wrote. ----- naz was green today but msft saw a heavy volume selloff w/ no major news to associate it with .. stockcharts.com[w,a]daclyiay[pc40!c200!f][vc60][iut!La12,26,9!Ll14]&pref=G stock now trades below the point at which cramer gave it that intraday tout (aug 1st)

To: ~digs who wrote (1505)	9/16/2005 8:39:50 PM
From: ~digs	Respond to of 7944

Skype: How A Startup Harnessed The Hoopla biz.yahoo.com The buzz began building this summer. In June, reports surfaced that Yahoo! was in merger talks with Skype Technologies, the Internet-telephone company. Before long, rumors were circulating that News Corp. (NYSE:NWS - News) and Google, too, were interested in Skype. In the end, the acquirer was perhaps the least likely suitor of all: eBay Inc. (NasdaqNM:EBAY - News), which announced on Sept. 12 that it would pay $2.6 billion in cash and stock for the Luxembourg outfit, with a further $1.5 billion to come by 2009 if Skype hits key performance targets. How did Skype, founded just three years ago, manage to parlay itself into that kind of prize? Sure, it has 54 million users hooked on its free phone service. But with revenues expected to hit just $60 million this year and break-even not likely until late 2006 even should Skype's rapid subscriber growth continue, the price astonished many observers. Good timing is part of the answer, given the huge appetite among media and Web companies for an Internet-telephony play.