Online auctioneer eBay's Skype Technologies S.A. unit, a British company that allows phone calls to be made on the Internet, on Tuesday said it has acquired Sonorit Holding AS and its U.S. subsidiary Camino Networks Inc. for 700,000 shares of eBay stock, or about $27 million.
Sonorit Holding AS and Camino Networks Inc. provide voice technology for the Internet. Skype said the acquisition will aid it in developing new technology in the future. EBay said the transaction will be immaterial to its full-year 2006 profit.
Skype is available in 27 languages and allows people to make unlimited voice and video communication for free. Sonorit, based in San Francisco, builds software for speech processing, coding and transmission of voice over the Internet.