WHEN GOOGLE ANNOUNCED the general availability of Google Voice, its web-based telephony service, earlier this month, the company essentially told traditional business communications service providers to look out.
On the face, making Google Voice available without an invitation from a previous user may not seem like a big threat to business communications providers: it is essentially a web-based voice platform. But when its enterprise applications and cloud computing expertise are factored in, the telephony component rounds out an offering that could be attractive to certain segments of the enterprise market.
Jon Arnold, a telecom analyst with J Arnold and Associates, says Google Voice is only one part of a larger offering that Google can offer businesses. Now it can provide a well-rounded offering of business applications tied into a voice product.
“Google is a better solution today,” Arnold tells Cartt.ca in an interview. “They have all the pieces for a truly integrated communications platform.”
In the PC-based calling market, Skype is Google’s most significant competitor. At the end of 2009, it had 560 million registered users. In 2009’s fourth quarter, Skype-to-Skype calls totaled more than 36 billion minutes. And 35% of Skype users utilized it for business purposes. (Click here for other Skype figures from GigaOM.)
Whereas Skype is a pure telephony play, Google has many other free tools that it can offer a business customer. Google Wave, for example, is an online collaboration tool that allows multiple users to communicate and edit documents in real time. Initially released last spring to developers, Google Wave was made available to the general public on May 19.
Despite the broad business use of Skype and the potential that Google Voice has in the enterprise market, Arnold says not to expect businesses to suddenly begin dropping their current communications provider.
“Neither of them is out to say ‘Get rid of your PBX. Do all your calls through us.’ That’s not what they’re there for. They’d like you to do that, but they’re not expecting it,” he says. “But they can give you reasons to spend less money with your phone company.”
Wendy Rozeluk, global communications and public affairs at Google Canada, acknowledges that Google Voice opens up opportunities in the business market, but notes that the service is really about helping people manage their communications.
“It helps you manage your communications by giving you more control over your phones and your voicemail,” she says, adding that customization features, call routing and the ability to have voicemails transcribed and waiting in the in-box will be big hits with users.
Google Voice can be described as a hub linking all of a person’s telephone numbers. When the number (assigned to the user by Google) rings, all of the devices connected to that number ring at the same time. And just like web-based email, Google Voice will store all voicemail and SMS messages in a single location.
The service also works on Android mobile phones, meaning people can avoid airtime charges by using Wi-Fi to make free calls. There is a per-minute charge for calls made outside of the U.S. and a one-time $10 fee is a user wants to change his/her Google Voice telephone number.
There are additional hurdles for Google to overcome before it can be considered a threat in the enterprise market. Voice is what helps the search engine giant to address the challenge head on, says Arnold.
“For them to be taken seriously as an enterprise play – they’re not considered Microsoft-caliber yet because they haven’t been in the game long enough and because people don’t think of them that way – it’s easier for them to gain credibility with voice as an entry point rather than for all the applications and software,” he explains (Google offers its own free word processing and other business/office software)
As well, Google Voice only works with a U.S. number now. That doesn’t preclude someone in Canada or a Canadian business from using the service, they just need to acquire a U.S. phone number before being able to use Google Voice.
The incumbent telcos and cablecos we contacted for this article didn’t return requests for interviews.
