Grand Central

Founded: 2005

Purchased by: Google, July 2007, $50 million.

Status: Smothered by The Google. Will it escape?

What did/does it do: Hosted mobile UC solution for the common man

Website:  www.grandcentral.com 

After collecting a whole bunch of awards in 2006 and 2007, GrandCentral was bought by Google and the company slowed to a crawl. No more press releases. There's an "in beta" logo still on the home page -- more than a year after acquisition. A trickle of sporadic blog postings from the founders continued, with the last, dated April 22, 2008, promising "a ton of cool new features." 

As of October, the division was no longer taking subscribers and Google was supplying cryptic answers as to its fate. The real problem with the app may be that it doesn't have a direct tie-in with the company's ad business, unlike Android, Chrome, Mobile and StreetView. 

Will GrandCentral ever emerge out of the labyrinth of Google's hallways and back into the daylight? Its blogger fan club hopes so, but The Goog is starting to smell like Xerox - if it isn't a copier, er, ad play, it's just going to look good on the shelf.