Well, Skype is back to being a private company. You can read about it here.

People keep pushing the hype around 2.0 apps - skype, facebook, etc.

Yes, they have tremendous value. But the flip side of the coin is the existing infrastructure and business landscape that currently exists. Skype and the like are what I'd equate to solar or wind energy. Great ideas that will one day change the way we do things, but until that day comes they will continue to under deliver.

They are what I'd call hot potato companies. You know they will be tremendously valuable one day, so people keep buying them hoping that 'one day' will be sooner rather than later. Then when they don't see returns, they bail and someone else takes their turn holding the hot potato.

Skype suffers from the same issues as any 'start-up' - fantastic innovation but poor business strategy.  Maturation into a sustainable market offering - one that is embraced by all corners of the market - requires integration with existing business models.

This is how the iPhone has been so successful, it brings something to the carrier. Trust me, if Apple could turn itself into a carrier it would - there's a reason carriers still run the world. While the pipes may be dumb, if you own them you own the customer.

Skype, unfortunately, will never get carrier business because they obviously are all about turning the carriers into big phat pipes and reducing the commercial value of voice to zero.

What Skype needs, in my opinion, is another anti-carrier partner. Hmmm, who could that be? Ta-Da... Vonage.

Just because I like brainstorming, if I were Skype, a few weeks prior to my IPO (not sure when Skype is going IPO, but it will)... I'd do some kind of deal with Vonage. Or I'd hold an 'anti-carrier' event / press conference. In essence, getting folks thinking about how two rogue companies are both offering an alternative to your traditional POTS line.

Whether or not anything were to ever materialize, communicating the potential synergies that could unfold would sure get the market excited. The Skype and Vonage PR folks should do lunch.