By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

September 12, 2005

Opinion: But can it win the auction when it will be bidding against Google, Microsoft and Yahoo?

In a real shift, eBay, as is evidence by its purchase of Skype, wants to not just help you auction off your old stuff, but it wants to become your Internet phone company as well.

Good luck, guys.

When eBay CEO Meg Whitman said, "Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community," who can disagree with her? What I have trouble with is "combining the two leading e-commerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications … will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net."

I see no fewer than three problems in tht last statement.

The first is that I don't see any natural synergy between Skype's VOIP (voice over IP) and eBay's auctioning and online purchasing systems. Do you?

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