eBay explains the deal to its investors via a packet of presos (via Paid Content)

Ross Mayfield says "Skype will provide eBay a communications platform for the other half of it's market -- the conversations. eBay will enhance the liquidity of it's spot market, gains a business with great fundamentals, positioning for yellow pages business, further infrastructure for billing, payment and -- identity."
Jeff Clavier weighs in: "eBay is spending about half of its cash reserve to acquire the VoIP company, at a stratospheric multiple (based on Skype?s rumored revenue levels)....and "A key learning: after this one, no deal is impossible or unthinkable."
Richard McKinnon writes: "This would have to be the fastest richification of two founders ever! 2 years after starting Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis are billionaires. Cool. More. It was the IPO of Netscape in the ninties, a company with no revenue, just converts to an idea, the browser, that ignited the first internet era. Was that just ten years ago? Is this that deal of the second internet era?"
Chris Carfi says the key points are: An opportunity to extend eBay communities to the desktop; a strategic move into emerging markets; integration of PayPal into the Skype interface.

Susan sez: All the above are true, but the two bellwethers, for me, are eBay's diversification into another powerful platform business (VOIP + community) and the global nature of the deal--this is the acceleration of eBay's ongoing growth across the planet.