Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) moved into the online phone biz in July 2007 with its acquisition of GrandCentral Communications, a startup that lets users lump multiple phone numbers and voicemails (such as from BlackBerries, home and cell phones) into a single account, manageable over the Web.
On Thursday, Google
relaunched and rebranded GrandCentral as
Google Voice, which will be available to the general public in a few weeks. A Reuters story notes the service will now use speech-recognition technology that Google developed for its Goog-411 telephone directory service, automatically transcribing voicemails into text you can see in e-mail form from a Gmail account.
The service makes money on charging for international calls, but as for
competition with eBay Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EBAY) Skype -- an RBC analyst told The New York Times "Skype is light years ahead in terms of video, simultaneous chat and voice, and the installed base is huge. I don't think they have anything to worry about."
On its
Beta Web site GrandCentral says if you are a GrandCentral user over the next few days you will be prompted to upgrade to Google Voice.-
Baz HiralalGo to the story
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