“The synergies between Skype and the other parts of our portfolio are minimal. We're going to continue to run and operate the business. It's not a distraction currently. And at such time when we have further announcements on that, we'll let you know,” he said. Now, put that together with what he'd said earlier, talking about the company's plans for 2008: "If the synergies are strong, we'll keep [Skype] in our portfolio. If not, we'll reassess it."
So, Sykpe's not a distraction? eBay cashed out $2.6 billion dollars for Skype. True, Skype has been doing well (despite some hiccups) and eBay may be looking to sell it at a higher price, but I doubt they'll be able to do that during recession, and after they themselves admitted the price was too high.
It's not the first such case for eBay; it has a history of odd acquisitions; they have a stake in Craigslist, but they've bought two other classifieds sites since, which resulted in a lawsuit from Craigslist.
And even a giant like Google can make mistakes; the services they've killed recently, like Dodgeball and (well, partly) Jaiku, were both examples of acquisitions done for the sake of acquiring something, without any clear idea where to go next.