Google Preparing to be MaBell?
Update: Sorry Its Not Going to Happen!
Update II: It Happened!

There a few notes floating around the ‘Net that Google is testing bits and pieces of Google Voice internally. Even rumors that a possible upgrade to GMail may include a Google Voice client popup –

The new feature will allow users to make voice calls over the Internet and it’s likely that it won’t be limited to Gmail. In April, TechCrunch reported that Google “built a Google Voice desktop application to make and receive calls” and that the application is tested internally. Google used technology from Gizmo5, a VoIP service acquired by Google last year.

For now, Google Voice’s integration with Gmail is not publicly available.

A Google Voice VoIP service with land line tie in? The consequences are rather formidable –

• Google probably becomes the instant largest VoIP phone company on the planet. Assuming that they tie this to every GMail account, that is in the cards by default. GMail outclasses Skype by at least an order of 2X.
• The paid for VoIP service collapses? Or the price points become inordinately cheap. Why pay for it if I can get if for free?
• Skype’s propietary signaling format bites them back. What has kept most folks with Skype is market size. If a larger player shows up with open protocols, it makes Skype’s technical decision problematic. That become a huge problem for them as they are now a start up again.
• The Skype-Verizon deal is toast.
• It makes the job of the folks trying to control the Internet that much harder. Hard to enforce net rules is they are precluded 1st Amend. speech provisions, which is what the FCC was supposed to guard in the first place.

As a technology this is not earth shaking, its just VoIP. But if Google follows their usual — free basic, paid premium scenarios — it is a massive realignment of the VoIP space as a business. It would also portend a serious challenge to the big three wireless carriers. A smart upstart could offer a unlimited data plan coupled with Android/GMail/Voice/SMS and blow their competitors voice/data plan pairings out of the water. (Hear me out there T-Mobile??)

This is a dark swan for telecom.

Linky

Update:

You must appreciate the remorse I have when I read this –

When Google acquired Gizmo5, a Skype competitor, in November Google Voice users rejoiced – presumably they’d be getting a much needed soft phone on the desktop for users to make and receive calls through Google Voice.

We confirmed that the application had been rewritten and was being tested internally at Google in April. Some Google employees continue to use the app, we’ve confirmed.

But don’t expect it to launch publicly any time soon, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Why? an internal religious debate about desktop software.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin don’t want Google to be in the business of creating software outside of the browser, say our sources. And that’s consistent with Google’s product launches over the last several years.

Of course it ignores the efforts that Google is putting into developing their own Chrome browser, Chrome operating system and Android operating system, as well as a variety of mobile apps – all are software that installs on computers or mobile devices.

But there may be a hard line when it comes to pure desktop apps like Google Voice. So the team has been sent back to the drawing board to try to make a workable soft phone that will work entirely within the browser using HTML 5.

So the upshot is, it ain’t gonna happen this year or next. Damn! Apparently part of a religious war internally. Personally I think this is a bad move on Google’s part. There is only so much you can do with Search. But with telephony, when you can do it big, there are all sorts of avenues where not only is search manifest in telephony use but it provides yet another source of revenue apart from search. Smart companies diversify income streams.

I need a scotch…..

Linky.

Update II :

Ok, so my scorecard was only half right! The upshot is, Google Voice is out of the Labs and into the wild! Wow. Integrated with Google Mail? Nope. I want that, but the fact that I can freely sign up for Google Voice without the invite is a good start.

Will be a busy weekend. Have a few clients that want this integrated into their websites. Loving it. The current release of GV won’t however put Google in the MaBell business however. It depends on an existing phone line to operate. But merely as a call director it has many uses for lots of people.