I read on The Street.com's website that BusinessWeek has reported that a Cisco Bigwig, namely Mike Volpi, Cisco's former strategy chief, has joined the board at Skype.

Skype's P2P VoIP business model doesn't exactly fit into Cisco's VoIP business model. Cisco wants to sell more hardware-based routers and using VoIP to leverage the sale of more routers. Skype is simply software that enables VoIP calling. Free software (Skype) versus hundreds of dollar hardware to enable VoIP. Hmmm... which would you choose?

Actually, they are two different animals and really only compete on the "surface". If you want business-class VoIP or a VoIP-enabled phone system, you're going to have to go the "hardware" route. At least for the foreseeable future anyway.

Check out the full story and The Street's analysis here:
Cisco Bigwig Joins Board at VoIP Favorite