eBay to buy Skype in $2.6bn Deal

Looks like some of that dotcom madness is back. $2,600,000,000 – and half of that is in cash. The BBC seems to speculate that this may have to do with eBay letting its buyers and sellers talk to each other via their computers. I don't think so. Who wants to sit around and answer questions real time for something like this? Email seems like a far better solution here. It seems to me that eBay is trying to move itself from being an auction company to a business solutions company. They may even try to tie PayPal and Skype together, allowing you to charge for an incoming Skype call by the minute (think as a competitor to 900 numbers). They could also use it as an inexpensive way to offer incoming 800 numbers. That is an interesting idea and does have some potential IMHO. But, Skype has some odd peculiarities and is not based a SIP. While this historically didn't matter, as SIP takes off it will. And with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Gizmo all jumping into the fray recently this isn't a market I'd want to be getting into right now. $2.6bn just seems like a lot of money to be dishing out for this. Is it a snap reaction to all the GooglePay rumors or does eBay really have a plan that most people are just missing?
–jeremy
Skype, eBay, PayPal, SIP