Skype may buy peer-to-peer VoIP startup Gizmo5

According to the Washington Post, Skype may soon purchase peer-to-peer VoIP startup Gizmo5 for around $50 million. The purchase is part of a back-up plan to ensure code base for the online VoIP provider in the event that it's lawsuit with Joltid results in the company not having access to the underlying code Skype uses to make VoIP calls. Currently the code base is licensed to Skype by its original founders who now run Joltid and are suing the company and eBay over intellectual property rights among other things (like getting the company back).

Currently Skype is developing an internal project called Gecko which is meant to replace the Joltid code to make SIP based peer-to-peer calls in Skype. The problem is that development is not going fast enough and Skype is looking for a third alternative to the Joltid code base--purchasing an unscaled, but proven peer-to-peer VoIP provider that they can combine with Skype. Gizmo5's six million user strong SIP-based P2P VoIP service seems to fit the bill nicely.

Read more:
- check out the Washington Post article [1]

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