Comments on article found at: http://blog.connectedplanetonline.com/unfiltered/2010/08/31/why-the-time-is-right-for-a-ciscoskype-deal/

The biggest problem with these “deal rumors” is that the majority of the time they are designed to get people excited over the company in question and jack up the price of the stock. The real question that should be asked is: Does Cisco want to compete against its customers?

Many analysts will find some way of conjuring up reasons why telecom players like Verizon and AT&T are giving up the voice business in order to spend money on entering another. Verizon is not giving up the voice business. AT&T is not giving up the voice business. The voice business is no longer the same old voice business of 1983 (pre-Divestiture AT&T). Today’s voice business is a converged business of visual, audio, and other content plays. Verizon and AT&T will never stop providing voice; voice will be provided along with their entire menu of services.

What we have today is no opportunities for a “voice only business”.

Skype is a free VoIP business. It has many, many users and we all get to use the service for FREE. How in the world does anyone actually expect Skype to have a valuation of $5 Billion?

If I am correct, Skype’s filing to the SEC proposed a $100 Million raise on the street.

If you do not generate revenue from the bulk of your users, then how to do you value the company at $5 Billion? Are you counting heads the way the Internet business used to count pairs of eyes? Is Cisco interested in buying a company that only provides “voice”. In a day an age when handsets, that 20 years ago my colleagues and I could only imagine as science fiction, now support everything from voice only calls to web surfing to mobile commerce to document editing to image projection to mobile banking; why in the world would anyone want Skype?

Cisco already has a platform for unified communications, therefore Cisco understands telecommunications (voice and media). Why would Cisco buy Skype? Is Cisco interested in Skype because of the millions of free users? Is Cisco looking at acquiring the customer list of Skype?

Telecom service providers are no longer freaked out by Skype because Skype is not a threat.

In short, other than the stock brokers who stand to make a pile of coin on a Skype IPO, can someone please tell me why Cisco needs Skype? I am wide open to hearing other rational views.