This all assumes that Microsoft doesn't manage to make a complete and utter hashup of Skype, now that they're really working on integrating it into all of their products and services. If they're lucky, they should do OK with it - but they will need to be lucky. I know the guy at Microsoft who's in charge of integration and continuing development of the Skype service. I worked for him for a year and a half. He's a good guy, really nice, really understanding, good at recognizing when his employees (even contractors) are going above and beyond expectations, and even good at rewarding those employees - but he's horrible at making use of his team members' time, skills, and energy beyond the one or two tasks that he has them assigned to. When I was working for him I only actually worked about 2 or 3 hours a day, unless I managed to beg a project off of another department, because no matter how many times I asked him for additional work, he could never come up with any projects for me that took more than about 45 minutes to finish.