The Skype crew are innovating and popularizing digital voice applications.
This is an area where innovation has been waiting to happen for a long time. I hope they have a good runway before they get bought, so they have some time to keep innovating, before somebody pulls them into 18 month product cycles and the good developers leave.
Whoever buys Skype will have a large influence on the pace of innovation in the area. I hope that it’s a company that has a vision for open, diverse voice communication apps, rather than a walled garden with incremental, closed services.