Google Voice

Google Voice primed to shake up the industry

Prior to the iPhone, Apple had zero cell phone market share — it hadn’t even built a cell phone before. Moreover, Apple didn’t become a carrier, and it agreed to only work with one in the US. Despite this, Apple shook up the industry pretty significantly.

Dave’s blog is a great primer for those who want to understand the differences between Google Voice and PBX application servers. Find out what makes Google Voice a completely unique offering and how it could impact your organization.

Mutual dislike of Microsoft won’t salvage Google and Apple’s broken BFF bromance

The days of Google and Apple having a cuddly relationship appear to be ending, and unified communications has played a small part in the break-up.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board of directors today, just a few days after the FCC opened an inquiry into why Apple rejected the Google Voice application from its iPhone App Store. Google Voice, based on the technology Google acquired with GrandCentral, is sort of a UC-on-the-cheap technology, as pointed out by our Click to Talk blogger, Tony Bradley.  At it’s core, Google Voice allows users to establish a single phone number which can be set to ring any number of devices - desk phones, mobile phones, home phones. It also has some unified messaging features, such as visual voice mail and online voice mail access, and it offers some other useful features, such as call recording, conference calling and directory assistance.

When Apple rejected the Google Voice application, many bloggers were upset. Some suspected that Apple was trying to protect AT&T from losing revenue, since Google Voice users can easily use the technology to move a phone call from their mobile device to a land-line. However, the picture is much more complicated than that.

As Dave Michaels pointed out on his blog, Pin Drop Soup, Apple and Google are now competitors. Although Google remains largely a Web-based software company and Apple remains mostly a hardware company, that distinction isn’t enough to keep this bromance alive. Michaels writes: “Well, maybe not a ‘primary’ competitor since Google doesn’t make hardware. But Google does make a browser, a cell phone platform, and an OS - direct alternatives to those made by Apple.”

Historically, Google and Apple have been relatively friendly toward, based on a mutual distrust of Microsoft. Schmidt’s presence on Apple’s board formalized that friendship. But now the companies’ interests are diverging. Google, which makes the bulk of its revenue in online advertising, wants a wireless Internet that is as open as its wired cousin is. Apple, like Microsoft and the majority of wireless service providers, want maintain a market where devices, operating systems, and carriers have a high degree of control over how wireless users access the Internet.

Apple and Google should have seen this split coming. After all, Microsoft is mostly a software company, too, and it has been Apple’s fiercest rival for decades.

Watch out, Google: Agito on Google Voice on BlackBerry

I gave a nod to Agito when I blogged about Google Voice on BlackBerry, noting that the big G was stepping into the former’s fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) turf with the launch of the BlackBerry and Android apps for Google Voice, which integrates one-number dialing across multiple lines so that, for example, a telecommuter can give one number and be reached whether he’s at the office, at home, in a hotel, or on the beach with his cell phone.

Agito’s obviously not a company to rest on its laurels, as Christian Gilby, director of product marketing for Agito, quickly put together a video showing the company’s software routing a Google Voice call over a Wi-Fi network:

Not shabby at all, and while the FMC and mobile unified communications fields are certainly going to get much, much more crowded over the next few years, Agito’s demonstrated they have a large head start with the technology. It’ll be interesting to see if they can keep their lead.