More specifically, you need a Gmail account and calls through your computer to American and Canadian numbers are free through “at least” [...]]]>

Making free phone calls just got easier through Google(www.google.com) (so long we all remember that “free” is not really free, but subsidized through someone else’s money) via “Voice Calls from Gmail.” 

More specifically, you need a Gmail account and calls through your computer to American and Canadian numbers are free through “at least” January 2011.  As is typical in the Great VoIP shell game, calls to other countries start at around 2 cents a minute to landlines, 15 cents a minute to cell phones.

One can get inbound calls through Gmail if you have  (free) Google Voice account.

Timing on this offer is everything, but when you pull up the comparison between Google’s rates and “Leading internet telephony provider,” The Goog’s per minute rates are equal to or better than “Leading.” 

If the folks at Skype haven’t already figured it out, Google is NOT their friend.

The timing of this rumor/impending announcement is, shall we [...]]]>

According to TechCrunch, Google has shelled out around $30 million in cash to scoop up Gizmo5.   Of course, the rumor mill last month had Gizmo5 being bought by Skype as a SIP backup plan if they couldn’t get JoltID and various other proprietary technologies secured.

The timing of this rumor/impending announcement is, shall we say, interesting at best because it comes on the Monday after Skype had indeed kissed and made up with its former owners and had secured all the code/intellectual property it needed to continue without a cloud of lawsuits.

Let’s think this through a little bit: Either A) For some reason, Gizmo5 and Skype weren’t really getting together, or the deal was contingent upon some bizarre clause that said “If we make up with Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, all bets are off”, B) Gizmo5 and Skype had a deal, but one or the other party got scared off by the evil lawsuits of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, and/or C) Gizmo5 has shopped itself around to both Skype and Google, with the winner being the first guy that provides a check that clears.

If Google has purchased Gizmo5, it’ll likely take about a year or more for the company to figure out what to do with it, so there’s no need to start frothing at the mouth about this being a “Skype killer” by any sense of the imagination.

Frost [...]]]>

Apparently, someone or someones is interested in pumping Vonage stock this week.   Or it may be some people are drinking the Kool-Aid because the stock has gone from under 50 cents a share to over $2 bucks in a weeks time. That whole 300 percent lift gets stock gurus all hot and sweaty…

Frost & Sullivan has some bizarre theory that Vonage is getting a lift from all the talk around Google Voice stimulating more interest in VoIP and therefore more interest in acquiring the company blah-blah…

I could see where an acquirer might be interested in Vonage since the company has cleaned up its act and tightened its belt.   Best Buy would be an interesting purchaser since they could clean house of Vonage’s expensive marketing department and integrate Vonage marketing into its promotional juggernaut.  Best Buy would get another service business – monthly recurring revenue good to smooth out peaks and valleys of consumer biz.  But, Best Buy would end up with a “competitor” to ooma and phone service offerings,  so that makes the idea a bit more blue sky.

Still, just because Vonage has submitted an iPhone app for sale in the iStore doesn’t mean everyone should get all excited. Apple is still trying to work out its story regarding Google Voice and we all know how that’s going…

AT&T has apparently ‘ fessed up that, why yes, the iPhone deal does block VoIP apps from using its cellular network, but VoIP over Wi-Fi is somehow OK.

And [...]]]>

Can we just cut to the chase and allow VoIP apps on the iPhone already, regardless of who does them and what network they use?

AT&T has apparently ‘ fessed up that, why yes, the iPhone deal does block VoIP apps from using its cellular network, but VoIP over Wi-Fi is somehow OK.

And Apple is still “reviewing” the Google Voice app because it mucks with its look-and-feel, changing the “experience.”  Doesn’t this smack of buying an IBM PC and being told you have to use IBM’s software — rather than someone else’s? Don’t we have case law floating around on this particular point already?  C’mon public policy lawyers, get your textbooks out and challenge this already!

After all the years of bitching and whining about “Think Different” and “1984,” Apple has demonstrated it is just as petty and can pull the same sort of crap as any other company intent on holding onto market share by Any Means Necessary.  Being a snob is one thing, being a bully is another.

It has a good collusion buddy in AT&T, who doesn’t seem to think that its own actions won’t move the FCC to do something real soon. Maybe AT&T is right, but it should start worrying about the Next Big Thing rather than trying to pretend we’re in pre-monopoly land all over again.

So the [...]]]>

Apple decides to pull the plug off of Google Voice-related apps, supposedly at the request (or a wink and a nod) from AT&T, because the App allows free text messaging and two cent per minute international calls.  The Federal Communications Commission decides this Isn’t Right and has launched an investigation of sorts.

So the latest showdown on Net Neutrality begins, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for AT&T.  Some members of Congress are already up in arms over the absurd profitability on text messaging along with the grumbling about extensive exclusivity on the iPhone.  Verizon, being no dummy, decides to sit up straight and open up its “exclusive” arrangements to smaller carriers within six months and announces it will have a crack at the Palm Pre shortly, thereby further highlighting the oh-so-monopolistic-esque practices of AT&T.

Apple? It could care less. Apple does what Apple does and the rest of the world takes it or leaves it.

Google Voice is rolling out a web site for access to GV services, so now the whole app thing is about ready reach a new level of absurdity.  Would AT&T go so far as to block access to the Google Voice website? Well, if it did, the torches and pitchforks would be out in full force from all sides, so I don’t think it’s going to happen. If it did, AT&T would have another public relations fiasco on its hands and Verizon would probably do another posturing stunt to show A) How nice it really is and B) Why the government really doesn’t need to regulate the free market…

So where’s Skype?  One would have thought that Skype would have been at the top of the highest soapbox bellowing out the virtues of Net Neutrality, but the company has been strangely quiet as the Apple/AT&T-Google Voice cat fight has evolved.  Perhaps this is because for all of Skype’s public rhetoric about Net Neutrality, the company has preferred appeasement to confrontation with a neutered version of Skype for the AT&T iPhone.

Or perhaps with Google Voice getting most of the spotlight and potentially stealing away long-distance minutes from Skype, Net Neutrality is a good idea for Skype so long as it doesn’t promote competitive alternatives…

GizmoVoice is the latest mashup service that Gizmo5 has pulled together, leveraging its pieces with other people’s pieces/services for relatively no/low cost. Users of [...]]]>

Over at his blog, Andy Abramson is reporting that Gizmo5 is testing a way for its users to make free U.S. outbound calls using Google Voice from any SIP device.

GizmoVoice is the latest mashup service that Gizmo5 has pulled together, leveraging its pieces with other people’s pieces/services for relatively no/low cost. Users of GizmoVoice should be able to have “ANY” SIP device, be it a WiFi phone, ATA, SIP client,  or even a PBX node, to make and receive (well, the make part is the key) U.S. calls without a monthly or per minute free.

But as that curmudgeon Jerry Pournelle said oh-so-long-ago, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL), someone is making a buck off this somewhere; it’s just not clear where at this point. I suspect this is part of  Mad Michael Robinson’s latest scheme to work the system to generate more minutes and more users.

Andy goes through all the permutations on how you can use Gizmo to receive Skype calls and pipe calls into GoogleVoice to get free voice mail, voicemail to email and free translation, plus a quick trick to make a call through an Apple iPhone to be IDed as a GoogleVoice number.

Skype can’t be that happy with these tricks. I really wish Skype would just suck it up and support SIP directly/natively out of its client, but if they did, it would break its walled garden concept too much and goodness knows where THAT would leave them.

Where the Business Week “gets it”–

1) Google’s ubiqulity and many [...]]]>

As I noted last week, Google Voice is going to make life difficult for Skype — not traditional carriers.  Business Week seems to be in line with my general thinking in a piece out this morning — but gets confused on the details.

Where the Business Week “gets it”–

1) Google’s ubiqulity and many many linked-together apps will drag Google Voice into the picture

2) Google will compete with Skype for SMB dollars and long distance dialing dollars.
Where Business Week doesn’t get it–

1) Implying that Google Voice will be more than a SMB alternative to replace Cisco and Microsoft offerings. NOT.  SMB hosted is different than the larger enterprise offerings that Cisco and Microsoft have out.

2) Implying that GV – a FMC-esque app if you have multiple numbers all over the place — challenges Truphone and Jajah’s revenue  in the mobile VoIP space. Truphone has the whole SIM card play so I think they’re OK.  Jajah runs VoIP calling for other companies, so I don’t see them taking a big hit here…

The Goog was brainwashing, showing off its latest Google Voice apps to Om Malik yesterday, with Google Voice service for BlackBerry and Android clients available.  Integration with GV and address book, cheap long [...]]]>

Forget all this crap about Google Voice being “your next phone company.” It’s Skype that is going to have some issues.

The Goog was brainwashing, showing off its latest Google Voice apps to Om Malik yesterday, with Google Voice service for BlackBerry and Android clients available.  Integration with GV and address book, cheap long distance calls, yadda-yadda.

I should have seen the Android client coming; that was a no brain, brothers… but the BlackBerry client should be a wakeup call to a lot of people.  Skype’s been working on a BlackBerry phone client for a while, but it ain’t available for download today as a beta.   Since Skype wants to collect business dollars and CrackBlackBerry is the de facto favorite of the biz community, there is a serious hole in the portfolio, hmm? Be interesting to hear why all the delays in a Skype for BlackBerry client. Heck, even Agito Networks has a FMC client for BlackBerry!

Now, let’s talk about pre-loading apps on cell phones, shall we? Skype has been fighting with carriers to get its app pre-loaded on phones with mixed success, but the company has been relatively quiet of late in stomping its feet about open networks and net neutrality.   If you buy an Android phone, having the mobile GV client included as a part of the load would seem to be a natural fit if the carrier allows — and if it doesn’t, it looks like the first or second app an Android fan boy would download to complement his shiny-new ‘droid phone. True, Skype is preloaded on more cellular platforms around the world these days, but not a Lot More.

Given that Google is more “open” than Skype on software matters and has a MUCH BIGGER market cap than Skype, when Google goes up to lobby about open networks and net neutrality, legislators are likely to pay more attention.

Finally, there’s the whole momentum/integration thing going on, whereas Skype is a one-trick (communications) pony. You have Google, the Search Engine, plus Gmail, plus Google Voice, plus Android, plus all the other beta stuff floating around. Put together gmail, the search engine, and Google Voice, plus the small-but-growing Android installed base and there’s a good chunk of critical mass right there.

Will this displace Skype? Well, not today certainly, but if GV rolls in some quick and dirty Twitter support — and it will, because Google has no problem playing with others when it suits its master plan — one might start to see some cracks in Skype’s walled-garden approach to the world.  Software can come off phones and computers (well, just get forgotten) as easily as it can be loaded.

I guess I am suffering from Google-burnout, between the hype for Google Voice, how Google is supposed to respond to [...]]]>

After two weeks of hype and rumors, Google Voice is starting to hand out phone numbers to its waiting list.  Although, after yesterday’s “Today” show segment, the company might not have had a choice.

I guess I am suffering from Google-burnout, between the hype for Google Voice, how Google is supposed to respond to Bing, Chrome, Android,  Google’s troubles with China on censorship, Google Wave, and Google Book Search…

In the “Today Show” segment, there was happy gushing from NBC News user Janet Shamlian, how it made her life easier and for her family to get in touch with her yadda-yadda.  Little downside was given in the piece other than potential privacy concerns since The Google gets access to your recorded voice conversations, voicemail (probably a more valid point if they start datamining the contents, even in a generic fashion) and everything else that flows through GV, like call data.   Heaven forbid that The Goog use that data to target ads!

We’ll see how long it takes for me to get a Google Voice number.  I’m not really convinced it is going to do anything greater for me than my current phone service(s) of Cox (landline) and Sprint (mobile).   Cox has added online Phone Tools, so I’ll get the visual voice mail component and call forwarding set on line. I don’t have a gazillion phone numbers to manage, so being able to simultaneous ring a bunch of devices Does Not Make Sense for me.

Finally, there’s the whole “hand Google my primary phone number when they finally get around to supporting it.”  So, I give Google my house number, and I need a new number (no doubt provided out of the million number stash Google has allegedly built) for my landline and this makes sense because…?

If Google Voice such a big-deal/game changing service, it won’t take too terribly long for everyone else (translation: Any voice service provider with a softswitch and purchasing a service pack upgrade) to do the same thing  After all, GrandCentral/Google Voice has had about two years of “betas,” so it has given those mean old phone companies and the vendors who support them plenty of time to figure out how to replicate the services on their own networks.