I have to get in on the commentary because I think the idea of Google buying Skype is ridiculous. This article was posted on slashdot earlier this morning and the idea of Google buying Skype have been floating around in the blogosphere for a little bit now. I really doubt this happening. I’m inclined to agree with Dave that Google’s new IM package will be an eventual Skype killer (or force them to adopt an open standard rather than a proprietary one).
There’s a deep cultural difference between Skype and Google Talk, a difference that happens to be Google Talk’s only strong selling point right now: Google Talk is based on an open standard (Jabber). Skype is proprietary. Oil and water. Google’s not buying Skype. (There is one other thing that Google Talk has: it’s so freaking clean compared to it’s advertisement laden competitors — but I’m not sure how much that’s going to do to get people to switch).