Auction for IPV4 addresses?

In times of a shortage, people tend to stockpile certain things. And with the looming exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, it's really no surprise that Microsoft jumped all over Nortel's stash of nearly 700,000 addresses when they became available for purchase. Nortel, of course, has been selling off what assets it can as the company battles through bankruptcy proceedings.

Microsoft ponied up $7.5 million for the Nortel pool, which works out to just over $11 per IP address. There were reportedly 13 other interested buyers, but only Microsoft and three others actually submitted bids.

With the last block of IPv4 addresses already issued, snatching up 2/3 of a million in one fell swoop is a smart move by Microsoft, and we're sure they have plans for the IPs. As far as what those plans actually are, we'll just have to wait and see -- though something cloud-based seems like a safe bet.

Source : http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/microsoft-buys-666-624-ipv4-addresses-from-nortel-for-7-5-milli/