In '07 Google acquired Grand Central, a VOIP telecom company and Grand Central services are about to be re-launched as GoogleVoice. Currently the service is only open to legacy Grand Central users, but Google has just acquired 1 million phone numbers from Level 3 in Boulder. Just from the basic information on the Google Voice home page, Voice seems to have an exceptionally rich and deep feature set, covering the gamut of VOIP features and best of all, it's free (at least for individuals). While it's clear that it is going to be a slam dunk for consumers, it's less clear but potentially more revolutionary for the Enterprise. More... With the addition of Voice, Google has a very wide and complete communication & collaboration product set, but where is it all leading? Currently, there is little integration between the various products on the Enterprise side. The possibilities are staggering, imagine if Waves and Voice were integrated, now you're cooking with gas, all of your project communications Voice, SMS, E-Mail, BBS, Documents and Instant messaging could be accessed from one place, and most importantly searched with Google's familiar search. Why not add the RSS feeds as well, Project Tweets, Calendar and etc. The possibilities are really intriguing, The trouble for Google in my opinion is how to maintain focus and avoid falling into the same trap as Microsoft, who's Massively integrated product suite is clunky, complex, bloated and just really tries to do too much, ending up doing none of it well. I have no idea where this will end up for Google, but it is terrifically exciting and I can't wait to see what happens. |
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