Google entering the VoIP business
With its latest acquisition, Google has officially entered the VoIP business. Some may say that entry was made earlier with the introduction of Google Talk but GrandCentral’s acquisition seems more significant. While Google Talk is merely a nice implementation of some open standards and a direct hit on Skype, GrandCentral provides a more unique product but also an ever growing tighter grip of Google on its users.
For those not aware, GrandCentral provides a single phone number (only in the US) that rings on any phone you want, be it your home, office or mobile number. The idea is, that even if you change any of those numbers you still retain your GrandCentral number for life. Google entering the picture gives that statement a lot more credibility. The service is currently no longer accepting registrations while Google transitions it to their own servers.
It will be interesting to see what Google does with the service. When Google acquired analytics company Urchin in 2005, it changed the name to Google Analytics and made the product free (it did the same with Keyhole, Picasa and Feedburner). Because GrandCentral was still in beta, the service was free and so it will probably remain.
With the latest acquisition, Google is tightening its ever increasing grip on the consumer. While it already has access to your search behaviour, e-mail, instant messaging, spreadsheets and documents it will now have information about (at least your incoming) calls. It will be interesting to see how Google is going to be using this information to monetize the service.
