All you 480 million Skype users out there should be rejoicing today, now that the Internet calling and video service has been freed from the clutches of eBay.

As was announced this morning, eBay is selling a 65% stake in Skype for $1.9 billion in cash to a group of private equity shops and venture capitalists. The deal also includes a loan from eBay of $125 million.

So let’s call it $2 billion. That’s about what eBay CEO John Donahoe said he thought Skype was worth when he announced in April that he was looking to take Skype public. Both the intention to spin Skype out (or sell it), and the price tag were points of data that investors have had months to digest. That is why eBay investors reacted fairly calmly today. This wasn’t a surprise  – good or bad – and the market reflected it. Shares of eBay (EBAY) were down about 2% on the news.

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Will 2009 go down as the year the tech IPO returned?

Rosetta Stone is part of the 2009 summer IPO surge. Image: Rosetta Stone

If you have been an investor in technology IPOs in recent months you’ve done well.

Starting in April, and really gathering momentum this summer, there has been a slew of tech companies that leapt through the public market window including Changyou (CYOU), Rosetta Stone (RST), OpenTable (OPEN), and most recently Emdeon (EM).

According to IPO research firm Renaissance Capital, the average overall return from the 10 tech IPOs since April has been 30% (with the biggest return, 138%, coming from online gaming company Changyou.com). Of the 21 companies that have gone public since the beginning of 2009, 10 have been tech companies. More