Bates, 43, has served on a number of boards of technology companies, including YouTube before its acquisition by Google in 2006. Skype’s new owners have already installed a new chief financial officer, general counsel and marketing head.īorn and raised in England, Mr. Private equity firms typically replace the incumbent executive team after acquiring a company. The devices have the potential of competing against Skype’s service. The company has long hinted that it would sell the miniaturized versions of its corporate videoconferencing systems directly to consumers. Bates’s voice technology group, left to become Skype’s chief technology executive.Ĭisco is expected to unveil a new line of lower-cost videoconferencing systems this week. In November, Jonathan Rosenberg, then a Cisco Fellow in Mr. The ceo of skype is here with a message for all you quotloyalquot users-watch 12 minutes of bonus footage here dropout-tv videos a message from the sk- A. He is at least the second Cisco executive Skype has lured away in the last 12 months. Bates’s departure is a blow to Cisco, where he was considered a rising star. Skype is also in talks with Facebook about a partnership, say people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last week Skype announced an agreement with a telecommunications company, Avaya, also owned by Silver Lake, that is expected to bring Skype’s services deeper into the corporate arena, a major growth initiative for the company.

Skype is profitable, earning $13 million on revenue of $406 million through the first six months of this year. Bates was departing “to pursue another opportunity” and announced that Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s chief technical officer, would succeed him. In 2005, eBay paid $2.6 billion for the start-up phone service but never integrated the company into its online auction business.Īn official Cisco blog on Monday said that Mr. Bates, who is expected to join the company at the end of October.

Joshua Silverman, a former eBay executive who has run Skype since early 2008, will step aside to make room for Mr.

Bates was also in charge of Cisco’s voice technology group, an important post in Cisco’s strategy to become more of a consumer products company. Tony Bates, who leads Cisco’s enterprise, commercial and small-business unit, which has $20 billion in annual revenue and about 12,500 employees, will assume the top job at Skype as its new owners, Silver Lake Partners, continue to put their stamp on the fast-growing company after buying it from eBay a year ago. Skype, the popular Internet video and telephone service, has hired a top official at the networking giant Cisco Systems as its chief executive, Skype said Monday.

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