I haven't commented on the Ebay acquisition of Skype, because I haven't given it a lot of thought - I don't follow Ebay at all. And while I use Skype, it's not something I depend on. Here's my first thought on it though: Why?

Ebay does one thing - internet auctions. Exactly how is that related to a telecom offshoot like Skype? This smells like the all too common "money was burning a hole in management's pocket" problem. I saw a lot of that (on a much smaller scale) at ParcPlace-Digitalk - management went on a buying spree, mostly because they could. I see no synergy here - it's a buy into a business that's going to require focus and investment (there's going to be a lot of interaction with regulatory groups in the medium term - 911 service, etc, etc). Will Ebay want to invest that level of management focus? How exactly does it benefit them?