Getting your player ready...
NEW YORK — EBay Inc. plans to spin off its Internet communications service Skype through an initial public offering.
San Jose, Calif.-based eBay said Tuesday that it expects to complete the IPO in the first half of next year, though it said the timing will be based on market conditions.
EBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in October 2005, hoping that buyers and sellers on its online marketplace would use it to communicate. That didn’t catch on, and eBay took a major write-down on the business in 2007, essentially admitting it had drastically overvalued it.
