TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

VoIP has become a very hot topic, especially among international users and both large and small businesses. It's a great way to expand phone systems and provide an infrastructure with support for way more than traditional plain old telephone hardware can support. That's what makes this purchase of Skype for $2.6Billion so interesting.

Originally a field of only bit players, VoIP has quickly gotten the attention of behemoths like Microsoft, Google, and eBay. Google has started their own talk service, and Microsoft has purchased Teleo, with plans to continue development. eBay now owns one of the biggest players, with Skype's network of 53 million users. Despite the faults people may find with eBay, something they have done very well is integration. They have merged various IT products together before, such as with PayPal. Most likely, all IT services eBay will provide will be integrated into this somehow as well. Fan of them or not, VoIP is something that can actually give the world as a whole a reasonable cost for communicating across the globe.