Who will buy Skype? Yahoo!? or Google? or Rupert Murdoch? | The Register: "In terms of rivals, Microsoft's MSN is already close to achieving a profile with its MSN Messenger which has good credibility as a telephony provider; Yahoo's instant messenger service is less credible as a voice carrier, but that will all change before the end of this year, when it unveils its plans in mobile and VoIP telephony.

In terms of technology, Skype has a real problem: it relies on 'supernodes' - users who have direct Web access to a 'real' IP address. The traffic in and out of normal nodes wouldn't be capable of travelling between two subscribers; there are no inbound routes. So the software fakes a session through a supernode.

The problem seems to be: the number of potential supernodes is dropping, and the number of ordinary nodes - behind mapped addresses or firewalls, or both - is going up rapidly.

The result: quality of calls is falling. Bandwidth available is poor compared with a year ago.

This problem is one Skype may solve before it becomes visible to potential buyers. If it thinks the solution is easy, it has no need to rush to accept a suitor.

So: if Cringeley's rumour is right, then the next two weeks will show how optimistic Skype founder Niklas Zennström is. If he sells out before September, we can deduce he's not sure about being able to solve the technical challenge. If he hangs on, we can suspect he's got it cracked."