eBay is buying Skype
Andy has reported that eBay has bought Skype by way of a press announcement on Reuters.
I think this will help eBay with revenue and a click-to-call/buy service which should boost value in the portal’s(?) offering. They will also be able to leverage Skype’s millions of users. I still think that in the big picture this was a mistake and they will find they could have accomplished the same technical goals using open standards technology for much less money and would be able to play nice with everyone else. Sounds to me like this is another case of the more money than brains syndrome.
Next stop, Vonage’s IPO and I think there will be at least one other VoIP company which will get snapped up in a mergers or acquisition before the end of the year.
WebRTC.is 
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/sep/1181000.htm
Maybe they should have purchased Xten, a public softphone maker, who they could have had for a few tens of millions. Heck they could have paid double that companys market cap and still received a good deal. Partner with a service provider, and take a penny or two off the traffic generated with eBays universe and voila!
I wonder whether eBay saw this item on their own site before they made their offer for Skpye:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5807543926
The seller, http://www.whitephone.com, says:
“Using this product you can compete directly with Skype, and go a stage further with your own community-building announcements system, video mail broadcasts, and many more unique features.”
Seems that eBay could have saved $2bn to $4bn?