TechCrunch's Michael Arrington this week broke the news that Skype is in negotiations to buy VoIP provider Gizmo5 for approximately $50 million.

"The purchase is part of a back-up plan to ensure code base for the online VoIP provider in the event that it's lawsuit with Joltid results in the company not having access to the underlying code Skype uses to make VoIP calls," writes FierceVoIP's Mike Dolan. "Currently the code base is licensed to Skype by its original founders who now run Joltid and are suing the company and eBay over intellectual property rights among other things (like getting the company back)."

"Since Gizmo5 has its own instant messaging, SMS and voice services, the average consumer wouldn’t really see the difference," writes GigaOM's Om Malik. "My sources in the VoIP world believe that it would be a Herculean task for Skype to pull off such an operation. And it would cost a lot of money. But think of it as grafting a pig heart to a human body: It can be done."

More here from TheDeal.com ... more here from ZDNet ... and more here from Xconomy.