eBay Believes the Skype

Take the Internet, add some communication services and you've got a new growth industry.

At least that's some of the thinking behind the stunning $2.6 billion deal between eBay (EBAY Quote) and Skype. And that's not all.

The concept that the Net is about to turn communications into a hotspot was the motivation behind Yahoo!'s (YHOO Quote) June purchase of Dialpad, and it was the brainstorm behind Google's (GOOG Quote) August decision to introduce GoogleTalk, its call-capable IM. Even Microsoft (MSFT Quote) has gotten into the voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VoIP, game with its buy of Teleo.

If you follow that logic, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see other giants like Amazon (AMZN Quote) jumping on the Net calling craze soon as well.

As with any speculative leap, to focus merely on the thin revenue from VoIP is to miss the bigger picture. Skype racked up $7 million in sales last year, and expects to reach $60 million by year end. And the mostly free international calling service also adds 150,000 new users a day.

That sort of growth is intoxicating to a wheezer like eBay, which is expected to boost its projected $4.4 billion top line a mere 25% next year.

Wall Street, originally tepid on the idea, seemed willing to go with the Hail Mary strategy Monday when the stock closed up 32 cents at $38.94.

eBay does have some Net credentials, and has defied some of its critics in the past on its way to dominance.

Its PayPal unit, for example, started as a dodgy money holder trying to instill trust in an unreliable marketplace. Today it's the biggest threat to credit cards on the Internet. And eBay itself, which began as a curiosity, now stands as a nearly peerless commerce success.

Some observers think eBay can pull it off for a third time with Skype, given that most of Skype's 54 million users are overseas, with half in Europe and a quarter in Asia -- two major markets eBay would love to conquer.

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