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Google Purchases GrandCentral Web Phone Service

Posted by Zonk on from the any-excuse-to-be-more-easily-reachable dept.

Nrbelex writes "Bloomberg News via the New York Times is reporting that Google has purchased GrandCentral. 'Google said yesterday that it had bought GrandCentral Communications, acquiring a service that lets people use a single number for all their phones ... GrandCentral users can create a single mailbox, accessible over the Internet, for all their phone messages, Google said on its Web site ... GrandCentral, based in Fremont, Calif., was founded in 2005 by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, two executives who worked for Dialpad Communications, a Web phone company that was acquired by Yahoo in 2005.'"

2 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Google as a carrier by packetmon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Working in the VoIP industry, I can see Google hurting a lot of the upcoming and established companies (Sunbelt, Packet8 watch out). I'm one for the corporation doing what's necessary to make money but this is certainly monumental and I have a feeling that networking will be next on the ISP/Broadband/FiOS like level for Google. They are (if you ask me) becoming their own worst enemy and it will be a peculiar show to see how regulation plays out in the next few months/years (remember the Ma Bell monopoly). I wonder in these days if say a company was facing regulatory pressure if they could just pack up shop and jump across the border. Imagine that Google based of its Tijuana headquarters. Then again, what the hell am I talking about... Google already greased pockets up... We at least they're not making cars yet.

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    Infiltrated dot Net
  2. Woohoo! by cduffy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have an account with Grand Central -- and as I see it, this move means I don't need to worry about that going away as they try to find a working business model. Woot! (Integration with Google Talk or such would be nifty, too -- though I really want to be able to forward my number to any arbitrary SIP address; supposedly, that was on the roadmap).