Monday, June 22, 2009

Google Voice - This is Gonna be Huge



In '07 Google acquired Grand Central, a VOIP telecom company
and Grand Central services are about to be re-launched as Google
Voice. 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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