What Skype Going Public Means

Growth is more likely to be the outcome as going public means more good things than bad. While private companies may choose to go public as an exit strategy (for investors to get their capital back), most businesses usually do so to raise capital in view of expansion. Skype's IPO suggests that the company has grown famous and turned into a gold mine. The statistics say it. Skype has more than half a billion subscribers, with nearly 150 million regular users, and more than 8 million paying users, each of them paying an average of $96 a year.

Since the IPO is a means to increase capital for further expansion, the horizons considerably open up. It is predicted that Skype will venture more on the business side, with expansions in SIP offerings. Also, more aggressive marketing will convert more free users to paying users. We also expect to see more enhanced features like multi-party video and better Unified Communications integration. Meanwhile, Skype remains Skype for end users. Nothing changes in the way people use it, until further notice.