things that make you go hmmm

So Ebay is jumping into the voip market. I think this is a desparate move. Ebay needs a 2.6B voip network like a company that runs online auctions needs a 2.6B voip network. Seriously, ebay's model has crapped out and this is their go-go acquistion in a "hot" new area to distract people.
Now, really, do I care about this? No, I don't own any Ebay, though I have used its service (auction, that is) recently and successfully. I just think it's interesting to see them move into telecommunications in such a, well, huge way.
As some have pointed out - if ebay was really interested in improving the commerce chain they could have built a system on the widely available open standards for a tiny fraction of the cost of the skype acquisition. Significantly, the growth rate of Skype was a significant merger condition - tied to 1.5B in additional fund transfer between the two entities. Much was also made of the 150K net adds each month - which seems to be focusing a lot of attention on the amazing (especially when compared to ebay) growth rate of the enterprise. Sure would look good on a balance sheet when the growth of the rest of your company is dying and your stock, which is massivly overvalued, heads to the crapper.