Ebay feeling pushed by IM forces?

This report in the WSJ suggests that EBay may be in the market for Skype Technologies, the internet based free telephone services based in Luxembourg. An interesting development in light of Google's recent introduction of its Google Talk service, Yahoo!'s Messenger, AOL's AIM, and Microsoft's ever changing MSN service. It is interesting that all of these services require a client application which is incompatible with all the other applications...making it a necessity that you create a network of fellow users, or be faced with using a variety of these tools. Seems like the next step is a service that unites these groups, enabling cross application communication. But not yet...