Skype is no longer going to be one of our Top 17 IPOs to Watch in 2011 any longer… Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) has wiggled in and cut Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Facebook out of their negotiations with Skype.  This morning Microsoft confirmed that it would acquire Skype for some $8.5 billion from private equity group Silver Lake.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Facebook would be the first losers here.  Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) has already been under fire from many angles, but it has its Telepresence efforts and it owns WebEx and bought Tandberg for its web communications.  This s just one more established strong competitor for Cisco.  Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) also owns GoToMeeting, and you can argue that this drives the value up for GoToMeeting or you can argue that it is just one more competitive threat.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: is the immediate winner here in this Skype-Microsoft tie-up.  eBay is still a partial owner of close to 30% of Skype after selling its majority interest.  $8.5 billion is much higher than what the IPO value was going to be, and now eBay can realize an instant win here.  In effect it will have sold Skype twice if you think about it.  Shares are up about 4% at $34.45 pre-market.

Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE: PGI) has now shed its old legacy fax business via PGiSend. The company brings together more than 15 million people in nearly 4 million virtual meetings each month. It also recently launched its new iMeet.com site for these meetings and the video compression for live meetings is incredible.  Its most recent quarterly revenues were up almost 4% to $116.9 million and the company is both profitable and trades like a value stock.

VocalTec Communications Ltd. (NASDAQ: CALL) is one that is hard to say will be a direct winner based upon a “valuation boost” but the company did turn out to be a huge win for those who bought shares upon the announcement that it was acquiring magicJack that you see advertised as the dirt-cheap phone service on TV commercials.  It has sold over seven million magicJacks and recently gave guidance for its first quarter of $30.9 million and approximately $0.22 EPS.

Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: VG) was hit last week after earnings and shares dipped back under $5.00.  Its income from operations increased to $30 million from $25 million in the year ago quarter although revenue was down marginally to $220 million.  Subscriber lines are not really growing, but it listed some 2,408,228 subscriber lines at the end of the quarter.

RADVision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) and Polycom, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM) are two other players for video conferencing and they might be able to claim higher relative valuation as a result.  The problem is that higher valuation here might be counteracted by tighter competition and further sector lock-out as a result.

This Skype-Microsoft deal may act as a lesson learned for Facebook and its super-young management team… Until Facebook goes public, you will continue to not be able to adequately fight these other buyouts if you want to chase them.

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JON C. OGG

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