Portal bid drives eBay Skype deal

At first glance, auction giant eBay and net phone firm Skype seem to have little in common apart from the fact that both do almost all of their business online.

eBay is a giant marketplace used by more than 100 million people to buy and sell all manner of things to each other.

In comparison, Skype has about 53 million users who make cheap phone calls via the service that relies on the net to carry the conversations.

Certainly, many analysts have questioned why eBay splashed out $2.6bn (£1.4bn) to buy Skype.

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