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Google Voice: Much ado about nothing
It's hard to get excited about Google Voice. I'm not so sure anyone should until the company starts putting stats on the table about the number of customers and revenues the project brings in.
The facts, as we know them, are as follows: In July 2007, Google paid $50 million for GrandCentral. One of the few blog postings after the purchase, dated April 22, 2008, "promised a ton of cool new features." It's now March 2009, and the "cool new features" turn out to be 1) Voicemail transcripts 2) Archiving and searching of SMS text messages, and 3) Low-cost international calls.
Google is going to undercut Skype by a couple of cents per minute on L-D, and that's cool?
Maybe the time is right for The Goog to strike because most of the other me-too VoIP players imploded, leaving a relatively clean playing field. Google can subsidize the effort with all that fat cash coming in from its ad revenue.
And maybe Google has a trick or two up its sleeve to scale GrandCentral to move out of individual accounts and into the more lucrative SMB and enterprises spaces - something that would give the Skype major heartburn considering it wants to play in the business world.
But I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid that just because Google is Google it will magically suck in new users to its IP telephony service and take users away from Skype. The guys at Skype have an established a worldwide customer base, a long-term plan to proliferate Skype everywhere from cell phones to HDTV sets for video conferencing, and a full-bore communications plan to let everyone know what it is doing.
Google just buys stuff, lets the programmers tinker with it, and then throws it out in a Darwinian fashion as a beta or preview or whatever you want to call it. On the scale of ad revenues Google generates, voice is a hobby and likely to stay that way relative to the efforts of Skype and Vonage. For Skype, voice revenues are its lifeblood.
If Google buys Vonage or Skype, that would be another story. But I don't think Skype wants to be bought anytime soon.
- Doug
Comments
Posted by Dave Michels | March 16, 2009 - 11:33am
Interesting article Doug.
I completely agree that Google is slow with its acquisitions. "Google just buys stuff, lets the programmers tinker with it, and then throws it out in a Darwinian fashion as a beta or preview or whatever you want to call it."
But I think you may be underestimating the long term significance of this product. I don't think Skype is in danger (any more danger than before) - I think this is a warning shot across the bow of the PBX makers.
If Google is serious about this, they have the potential to steal away the PBX makers lucrative software applications. I will post my thoughts in more detail on my site at www.pindropsoup.com.
I was hoping to catch up with you for a bit at Voicecon - but all your pleas about scheduling sound like you may be too booked.
Posted by Doug Mohney | March 16, 2009 - 11:59am
I think I might be a contrarian on Thursday, but not for the reason you cite.
People are going to host or not host, so does Google's offering compete with existing hosted solutions in the SMB space? Or is it too small to fret about?
VoiceCon: I am sitting in the car stuck on the railroad tracks and see the engine coming and my seatbelt is stuck.
Posted by Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments | March 16, 2009 - 12:11pm
The inbox of Google Voice looks so much like Google Mail that both service will obviously integrate soon. One inbox for email and voice is quite a new feature for me. Especially because I got it for free, without even asking for a shiny UC solution.
An email service which has a phone number, lets me chat as well as make Video calls to other users (GTalk) or voice calls to the PSTN is another cool feature set. That's what I get from Google, apart from RSS, Docs, Search and all other features.
It's great to see how Google's services integrate and can be controlled from only website, be it GMail or iGoogle. Only that it's scary that they know so much about me.
Posted by JR Snyder Jr | March 16, 2009 - 10:29pm
After I upgraded one of my two Grand Central accounts I decided to leave the other alone. You're assessment of Google and how they treat products they've bought, is right on target. Google Voice also appears to be in that category and it looks like it's also intended to integrate with Gmail, Reader, Gtalk into one rolled up browser application. That could be good for an individual user but I'm not sure how you make money on that with advertising and upgrade fees.
It's not a killer for SMB or a professional, it seems to me that gap will be filled by someone else, much better. Google Voice doesn't fill that need. Not a "must have" and not a replacement for Skype, even with it's troubles. Where's the video?
One Number For Life Revisited
Posted by Doug Mohney | March 17, 2009 - 9:20am
Ahh, but would that be video for GoogleTalk (which can't be called Google Video because, well, Google Video was something else hmm... ok, skip that pondering) or video under GrandCentral.
And whatever "that" video is, you'll have to integrate it with mobile video support in the Android, whenever that appears.
Posted by Anonymous | July 31, 2009 - 2:03am
I think all of these google product will shine when their OS comes out.
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