Google and Skype?

There's a lot of talk about Google buying Skype, and I've said before that the partnership would be a powerful one, but, as Om Malik says, 'Google doesn't need Skype'.
Google could develop their own for a lot less than it would cost to buy Skype, and I'm not convinced that Skype has yet built any significant barriers to entry, other than having a good piece of software!
If there was a Skype ecosystem and a whole lot of community activity around Skype, then there would be a reason to get a hold of it, but for now it only excels on a technical level, and even that is due in large part to GIPS, and the Peer-to-peer capabilities from Kazaa.
The question is, 'How sticky is Skype?' and the answer, as far as I can see, is 'Not Very'.
I use Skype as my primary IM and I use it to save money on international calls, especially when travelling, but there is nothing I could not easily take with me when something better comes along.

There is a change happening in our communications and all methods of communicating are converging to a single platform. It's not about who has the best Voice, or the best IM, or Video, it's about who has the best Presence.
Skype is winning right now, but we are still in the infancy of this market and I suspect the best is yet to come. Will it be Skype that evolves in time, or something new that blows the others away (like Skype did previously).

Maybe Google will take Presence to the next level... I look forward to it.

UPDATE: Before I could even publish this, Google go and release Google Talk and their new desktop software.
As I don't have a gmail account, I can't use all the features (!!?), so now I really want a gmail account.
Is Google Talk the thing that will blow Skype away? Doesn't look like it, yet, but it has huge potential and Skype is not evolving nearly quickly enough to put distance between itself and the competition.
I agree with Stuart Henshall, Skype needs to open up, quickly. The Skype ecosystem needs to broaden and allow much more commercial activity to take place within the SkypeNet. I have my doubts about whether the architecture will easily allow that, without a serious increase in server side capacity. Now that Google have released, it will be an uphill battle to prevent churn.

If I was a betting man, I'd bet on Google to come from the rear (based on what I saw, they are still lagging) and pull away in the home strait.