The eBay-Skype marriage suffered from other problems too. First, the culture clash between the two companies was too great to overcome. "eBay is an extremely conservative, bank-like culture," says Abramson. "Skype was out to be the democratization of voice. They were out to be the leveler of the playing field, and they've done that." In addition, Skype went through several management teams during its four-year eBay period--a lack of consistency that didn't help matters at all.

Now that Skype is free of eBay, where will it go from here? Keating sees Skype making a play for the business VoIP market, where competition is fierce. Abramson believes the company will focus on bringing advanced video conferencing services to consumers, and on expanding its presence in the mobile VoIP market.