Google poised to become your phone company
Posted by John on 15th November 2009
Google poised to become your phone company
- Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.
- Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype
- Users could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on smartphones
- Consultant: “If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP”
(Wired) — Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.
Seriously.
Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.
Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.
It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.
Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.
Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the Internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.
That’s not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.
Ask longtime VOIP watcher and consultant Andy Abramson, who introduced the idea of integrating Gizmo5 and Grand Central (now Google Voice), long before Google bought either.
“Google is now the the uncommon carrier,” Abramson said, punning on the iconic 7-UP commercials and the phrase “common carrier.” That refers to phone companies that operate on the traditional publicly switched network — a status that gives them benefits and obligations.
“If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP,” Abramson added.
“All of a sudden you have something that offers more than Skype,” Abramson said, saying the combo could now put Google in competition with phone and cable companies, IP “telephony” (VOIP) companies and Vonage. “But now you can do everything with Google and pay nothing and have a platform where engineers can build new things.”
(excerpted; more via http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/13/google.phone.service/ )
Google acquires Gizmo5.com
Thursday, November 12, 2009 | 2:30 PM
Today we’re pleased to announce we’ve acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don’t have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number.
We’ve acquired a number of small companies over the past five years, and the people and technology that have come to Google from other places have contributed in many ways, large and small, to all kinds of Google products. Since the GrandCentral team joined Google in 2007, they’ve done incredible things with Google’s technology and resources to launch and improve Google Voice.
We welcome the Gizmo5 team to Google and look forward to working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice.
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Tags: google voice, online, voip
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