The Google Voice landing page lists the primary features as “One Number” (for all your phones), “Online Voicemail” (that behaves like email) and “Cheap calls” (which are actually free in the U.S. and Canada). Yet I think that those features are listed in reverse order of importance to folks that are generally unacquainted with VoIP services, call management and the joys of automated transcription of voicemail messages.

Of the dozen of so people I’ve invited to use Google Voice, those of us who use it to make free calls to Canada are the happiest. Most of the others have either not used the service at all, or occasionally give out their “Google Voice” number to people with whom they are carrying out business. After a few months of using the service, most don’t know their Google Voice number by heart (I know I don’t). Recent invitees have been able to pick a vanity number (like ones that include their names) that they find easier memorize.

With cheap calling as the primary reason people register for Google Voice, it is on a collision course with Skype when it comes to growing the user base for enhanced VoIP services. Indeed, it is probably not a coincidence that Skype chose this day to open its waiting list for “Skypekit” a library of software and API’s to help application developers integrate Skype into their offerings for all sorts of devices and mobile platforms.

Stepped up activity surrounding Google Voice and Skype will lead other “cloud based” telephony platforms (like IfByPhone and Bandwidth.com, among others) to step up their game. Thus the second half of 2010 should emerge as a golden age for phone apps. With newbies entering the market both as customers and as application developers, the best counsel I can provide is to say (as I have in the past), “The difference between a brilliant phone app and a stupid phone trick is the attention paid to the quality of the user experience.”

The description of the range of services to be offered sounds exactly like the Skype application offered on the iPhone. The most salient difference will be that the app will be running constantly in background on the nine devices described (which is not possible on the iPhone). It also marks the symbolic end to Verizon’s (as well as its wireless cohort’s) long-standing concern that VoIP services offered over the data link will cannibalize their core voice revenues. John Stratton, Verizon’s Chief Marketing Officer, told attendees of the Mobile World Congress that he was not concerned about either erosion of the voice traffic on its network or a decline in quality that would result from congestion caused by massive demand for Voice-over-3G.

Stratton said that the application was jointly developed from the ground up, leaving many details up for interpretation. My own belief is that the always-on Skype will be “link agile” using WiFi when available, 3G in some cases or the Verizon cell network if required to sustain qualities. At least that’s how I would architect the service given that subscribers must contract with Verizon for one of its Voice and Data plans. According to an article by Roger Chen in the Wall Street Journal, the “cheapest monthly voice plan now costs $40 for 450 minutes, and a $30 data plan is required with any smart phone.” So you may as well make the best use of all the links you can.

As for the impact on the wireless VoIP world at large, the application seems underwhelming. Sure it rattles AT&T Mobility’s cage by offering a nailed up voice-over-3G service one week after AT&T made it clear that it would continue its WiFi only approach. Yet, the range of services that are offered have an entry-level feeling to them. Meanwhile, Mobile World Congress was brimming with some really impressive X-over-wireless-IP services. Of special interest to me is a “video calling over the Internet” offered through the iTunes store by Fring and this intriguing voice-to-voice universal translator service offered by wireless personal assistant specialist VoxOx.

Harking back to my post about “satsificing”, I’m not sure that any of the services will work at high-levels of quality in all instances, but they are working well enough to make them ready for prime time.

It was a move that, among other objectives, aimed to please FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who is also quoted in TWICE, commending “Apple’s decision to open its platform to 3G calling, an action that will create new opportunities for entrepreneurs and provide more choices for consumers.” The immediate beneficiary is Connecticut-based iCall, which has added “free phone calls” from the iPhone to a roster of free or low-cost voice calls using PCs running specified versions of Windows, Linux or MacOS.

According to reports Fring has already joined iCall in the AppStore, while Skype says its app is ready but waiting for a few tests and modifications to be complete. The move dramatizes the opportunities presented by iPhone while, at the same time showcasing how opportunities can be created or destroyed at the whim of Apple’s policymakers. At this point, just a few days after Google launched its Web-based access to Google Voice features, there is no turning back, and charging forward means that new features and functions are bound to augment vanilla, free long-distance.

The phrase “over-the-top” suggests a level of extravagance (think of “over the top” entertainment). Yet, during the past 10 years it has become synonymous with “cheap international calls”. In 2010, I expect OTT to return to form and refer to all sorts of value-added services and innovations, whose providers take advantage of those “cheap” or “free” minutes to take VoIP “beyond customary boundaries” (which happens to be one of the Dictionary.com definitions for “over the top”). Avaya and 02 are seeing the same trend, and we can expect a stream of acquisitions, partnerships and innovative service offerings that take incumbent carriers and traditional enterprise infrastructure providers over-the-top and outside their comfort zone. Case in point: BT with Ribbit.

Avaya’s overall message to the marketplace is that it is simplifying enterprise telephony and communications. Indeed, it has cleaned up its catalog of business communications solutions and it has created a new architecture, Aura, that is more conducive to embedding key components of voice processing, call processing, database management, analytics and reporting neatly into either the IP-based cloud. The approach is deceptively simple, meaning that there are a lot of moving parts. Absorbing Nortel and phasing out the Nortel brand adds one more level of complexity to the solution delivery process.

Now that Nortel and Skype share a major investor, Silver Lake, Olga Kharif in BusinessWeek reports here that executives from the two companies are “in talks” to determine how the two companies can better work together. Both Nortel and Avaya were heavily vested in IP-based “unified communications” strategies, putting emphasis on client-side management of presence, instant messaging and collaboration. Both had formal relationships with both Microsoft, to support Office Communicator and IBM for its UC Squared line up.

Having a SIP-based network to support inexpensive Internet-based voice calls independent of IT vendors might play well as a “simple solution” during the Nortel-to-Avaya transitional period (which will last years). We’ll certainly be watching the development of Avaya’s product roadmap to see where there is room for Skype.

As part of the Skype for SIP open beta program, Skype has created a low introductory price for the monthly channel subscription of $6.95 per month. According to Phil Wolff’s post, the going rate for Skype Out is $0.2.1 per minute in 36 countries.

To use a tennis metaphor, the initial serve and volley between Dryburgh and Gouran turned into an exchange of groundstrokes that revealed that both players have impressive backhands. Meanwhile, York’s commentary, which takes a decidedly technical approach to whether it is practical for Skype to support so-called “P2P-SIP” connections, spurred another round of online discussion regarding the VoIP giant’s strategy for future survival and ultimately growth.

Yet, on Thursday Oct 15, Phil Wolff posted this article under the headline “Why Collaboration is strategic for Skype”. In it he practically renders the “P2P-SIP” question moot by declaring that “collaboration”, in its many forms, is the next must-have feature for Skype. It’s a compelling argument. Many of us have learned the hard way that users regard voice as a commodity. Skype built its much vaunted “reach” as a free, or very low-cost substitute for international phone calls. Only a small percentage of the hundreds of millions of users spring for services that carry a price tag, such as Skype Out to initiate calls to traditional phone numbers, or other call management features.

As Wolff correctly notes, “Skype everywhere” has been the goal of the company for a number of years. A number of developers in the Recombinant Telephony world are already building interesting apps with Skype talking to Asterisk and a skinnier Skype client supporting larger communities of talkers. In his post, Dan York notes that Skype constantly hires engineers with deep knowledge and experience with SIP. So P2P-to-SIP or P2P using SIP schema are pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Which leads us back to Wolff’s central belief that such a switch is simply not enough. The next generation of Skype must be transformational (and it is very much underway). It involves making it much, much easier for Skype users to collaborate in meaningful ways with one another. It brings in voice, video, screen sharing, conferencing, task distribution and other so-called “productivity enhancers”.

Skype could advance the best collaboration practices and technology. And with Skype’s distribution (one billion accounts by 2013), could easily become the tool of choice for producing results, enjoying your job, and building economic security.

That’s a pretty good headstart versus the firms whose beachhead is IM, UC or videoconferencing.

More to the point, eBay issued a letter to its customers saying that it was removing the Skype-based click-to-chat or click-to-talk buttons from their listings, effective June 10. EBay’s management cites “limited buyer and seller usage”. But it is more likely that the company, which derives significant revenue by taking a percentage of the value of transactions carried out through its resources, had no incentive to encourage interactions, and the subsequent transactions, to be carried out over a synchronous voice or text-chat conversations.

This should not be taken as a dismissal of voice communications (or chat for that matter) as a vital way for buyers and sellers to communicate in conjunction with Internet based commerce. The opposite is true. With the introduction of more robust IP-based telephony services and companies taking advantage of telephony APIs for e-commerce hosts (like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure) we expect to see rapid-fire introduction of services that can quickly toggle from clicks to conversations.