Presenting potentially the biggest threat to competitive service providers (CSPs) yet from Google Voice, Google has integrated the Web-based calling application into Gmail. Users of Gmail will be able to call any phone directly from the popular Web e-mail application.
Previously, Gmail users could conduct voice chats – essentially, voice calls from a Web interface – but both users had to be at their computers and logged onto Gmail. Now Google Voice can dial any phone number from the Web mail application.
“Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year," the search giant said on its official blog, “and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates." Calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan and other developed countries will be priced at two cents per minute.
Based on the technology from GrandCentral, acquired by Google in 2007, Google Voice launched in early 2009. While it has attracted millions of users drawn by advanced features like call screening, call forwarding, integration with Google Contacts, and so on, Google Voice has remained the province mostly of VoIP aficionados and other early adopters. The integration into Gmail, one of the world’s most popular free Web-based e-mail applications, with hundreds of millions of users according to Google, could make Voice a much more significant threat to CSPs who offer many of the same services for a fee.
As usual, Google has found an interesting marketing strategy for the service. The company said it will install red, British-style phone booths at select universities and airports over the coming months, to entice casual users to try Voice.
Google Voice has not yet been integrated into the Google Apps version of Gmail, which can be customized for use by businesses. At a press event in San Francisco, Google executives did not specify when that addition will happen.
