Google Voice VoIP in 2010?

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Google Voice VoIP in 2010?

eWeek has an interesting interview with Google's Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz where Bradley said he was very enthusiastic about Google's acquisition of Gizmo5, a company that unlike Skype adopted the industry SIP standard. Gizmo5 brings technological know-how to Google in the areas of VoIP, SIP, and termination. Further, Gizmo5 has a software client that makes Google Talk pale in comparison. I wouldn't be surprised to see Google Talk phased out in favor of the Gizmo5 client. Perhaps even Gizmo5 will be renamed Google Talk for better branding.

With that expertise brought in-house, Google can take their popular Google Voice to the next level - namely VoIP. These suspicions are confirmed by Google's Bradly Horowitz who declined to give specifics about Google and Gizmo5 but hinted at their future roadmap when he said, "What we're trying to do with telephony is give people a seamless experience that frees up their telephony communication from the silos where it's lived for the last decade. Voicemail, my contacts, all of those things have been segregated from the rest of my Web experience. We have big plans to do a better job.

According to the eWeek article:
Google Voice, which includes such tools as automatic voicemail transcription, SMS support, conference calling, and low-cost international calling, is free and has more than 1.4 million users.

That pales in comparison to the nearly 500 million users Skype enjoys worldwide, but unlike that popular VOIP app, Google Voice users must have a phone carrier to use the service. However, that will change in 2010.

Google in November acquired Gizmo5, a maker of so-called softphone software that will enable Google Voice to operate like Skype by letting users place calls via the Web from one PC to another or from a PC to a landline or mobile phone.

While it's fair of eWeek to compare Google's Gizmo5 to Skype, I think they're slightly different animals. The majority of the 500 million Skype users make  free PC-to-PC calls and instant messages and do not make paid SkypeOut calls. Also, Google Voice has more advanced mobility features, voicemail transcription, and other features that compliment your mobile or landline service. I think Google has a good chance of integrating VoIP with your mobile phone with a single number identity.

In addition, with VoIP termination expertise from Gizmo5 it is quite possible that Google can finally compete not just with SkypeOut, but can become a full phone service provider like Vonage. Granted, Google isn't in the hardware biz - customers would need SIP-based analog telephony adapters to terminate onto the Gizmo5 SIP-based network, but neither is Vonage. You can buy a SIP-based ATA pretty easily and often companies such as Vonage or Packet8 partner with home-based router companies such as Linksys to embed their software with special provisioning firmware. Vonage was able to use their clout to get special deals with Linksys to embed their software, so can you imagine the clout Google carries?

2010 will be an interesting year for VoIP and I have no doubt Google will have some interesting VoIP news up their sleeves.


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4 Comments

Check out the url change.
Gizmo5 is now hosted at google.com/gizmo5

I love what google is doing. They know that VOIP is the market to be in right now and they are going after it. Can you imagine what will happe to Voip services now if good enters the market? Out of business. Google voice has helped me alot with SMS features and save me over $500 a year. All thanks to google and lets see how they handle VOIP.

Well this information is very important.VoIP features are plentiful and have the ability to block anonymous calls,easily change your phone number,choose distinctive rings for specific callers,choose any area code,keep a phone number indefinitely,block telemarketers, make free long distance calls to other VoIP users,block specific numbers from anywhere in the world and leave a “do not disturb” notice to would-be callers.Ne ways i will look around for more details.

I hope so 2010 will be the year of Google VoIP.Google's recently acquired Gizmo5 has a superior client to Google Talk--and might see the original Google Talk phased out and the Gizmo5 software renamed.


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