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Google could be aiming at Skype with Google Voice mobile push
Google is playing up the budding relationships it is forming with wireless carriers around its launch of Google Voice, according to an article in BusinessWeek. Google, which already co-brands the G1 Android smartphone with T-Mobile, has restricted Voice's access to WiFi connections, which causes customers to use their paid mobile minutes to make Google Voice calls. Some analysts see this as a sign Google is catering to carriers to smooth the way for greater adoption of the service. VoIP market analyst Jon Arnold says in the article that he doesn't think Google has ambitions to become a phone company, however, and the carrier-friendly policies so far introduced by Google signal a partner role could be more likely.
Google Voice's mobile rates are lower than Skype's in most top international calling markets, including Germany, France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, China, and the United Kingdom, according to a comparison of posted rates. Google Voice doesn't break out the mobile rate for calls to India, but the rate to landline phones is also less than Skype's. Google also has announced plans for a Google Voice application for the iPhone and has already rolled out apps for BlackBerry and Android phones, which could increase adoption and use of the service dramatically.
Skype's user base, however, is obviously orders of magnitude larger than Google Voice's at this point, so it remains to be seen if Google Voice will ever be able to scale like Skype has. Google's push into the mobile market as a partner with carriers, rather than appearing as a substitution threat, could help the company eat away at Skype's sizable present advantage.
For more:
- see the BusinessWeek article here
- see Google Voice's international rates here
- see Skype's international rates here
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Comments
Posted by Faisal Mohammad | July 21, 2009 - 6:07am
Well, let's see what Google does next, I think it's a bad idea for an organization to poke nose in everything they see infront of them, but there's a famous quote about Google that they only hire extra genius people, may be they'll show something in coming years, all I know is that, Google is very slow in providing new services to it's users which other companies already launched years back. Skype & Google = No comparison. Google's support never helps.
Posted by Anonymous | September 12, 2009 - 3:22am
Google is refuting a report in USA Today that it rejected Skype's voice-over-IP application for the Android mobile operating system. "Consumers who use Android, the Google-developed operating system for wireless devices, can't use Skype," USA Today reported on Friday, adding "Skype allows you to talk as long as you want without draining cellphone minutes." Not true, Google vice president of mobile platforms Andy Rubin writes on Google's Public Policy Blog. "While the first generation of our Android software did not support full-featured VoIP applications due to technology limitations, we have worked through those limitations in subsequent versions of Android, and developers are now able to build and upload VoIP services," Rubin notes.
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