This morning my RSS feed had a few pointers to this blog post which asserts that Google has already cobbled together its technologies to enable Gmail users to originate telephone calls. One of them was tagged “RUMOR” which, before my first cup of coffee, I read as “HUMOR.” But this is not a joke. It’s not even a stretch for Google because it has so many acquired components – codecs from Global IP Sound, infrastructure from Gizmo5 as well as the venerable Grand Central – as well as the plumbing that already supports GoogleTalk and Google Voice.

Beside, the ability to originate a phone call (or even a video chat) from “inside” an email client is a candidate for the “most demo’d” feature for the “Unified Communications” suites from Microsoft, IBM, Avaya and a handful of others. According to the “Google Operating System” blog post, Gmail users will be able to click on a “phone icon” which will open a “chat client” that includes a dialpad for originating a phone call. It will also illustrate the credit balance a Google Voice user has on his or her account. For those of us who have used Google Voice on an iPhone, the similarities sound pretty striking. You are presented with a landing page that features the keypad, but also provides one-touch access to Buzz, Gmail and “more”. The keypad captures digits and then initiates a a call that that ultimately goes over the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). It’s pretty slick, and ultimately transparent to the user (except that a dialog box appears to say that it is originating a call from some third party’s number.

These are by-no-means “stupid phone tricks.” Google is making its point that “voice services” are an integral part of Web-based offerings and that the Web extends from desktops to smartphones to POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) on a natural, as needed, basis.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Unified Communications, VoIP, Google Voice, Cloud-based telephony