eWeek is reporting that eBay is in talks to buy Skype, a remarkably popular voice and text communication IM program.

Skype's popular and cool, but I have to say that industry references to Skype as a VoIP player are (IMHO) poorly thought out. Why? Because Skype uses no industry standards in their communication - they created their own proprietary protocols, which means they don't interoperate with other systems. What Skype needs to do in order to play the full VoIP field is add (note - I said "add" not change) SIP and other standards-based capabilities to their product for communication and connectivity. If they do that, they might just make some money and own a huge market. But they'll have to hurry if they haven't already started.

Also - why in the world would an auction company buy a IM and Internet calling company? Is eBay really that lost? Their share price after the rumor broke seems to show it may be a bad idea. Or maybe I'm missing something here, but on its face it seems a bit ridiculous.