Google Acquires Gizmo5, Skype Competitor; Will Integrate with Google Voice

Posted on November 14, 2009 by dsarna

Google confirmed the rumors that it has acquired Gizmo5. Now, Skype, in the process of being spun off from ebay, will have a strong competitor. In the announcement on the Google Voice blog, Google said,

Today we’re pleased to announce we’ve acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don’t have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5′s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number.

Gizmo5 (formerly known as Gizmo Project and SIPphone) is the name of a Voice over Internet Protocol communications network and of a proprietary freeware soft phone for that network.

eBay after an acrimonious public dispute with the founders of Skype has just announced that it has reached a settlement, clearing the way for the sale of the Internet communication company to a consortium formed by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, as reported by TechCrunch and others.

The acquisition is significant. According to Luca Filigheddu, Gizmo5 has demonstrated to be the best SIP-based VoIP service out there, letting users make VoIP calls from their PC, IP phones, mobile phones and other devices like, for example, the Nokia N800, offering inbound numbers and offering a service that let users make VoIP calls to Skype users, too.

Last but not least, Gizmo5 was integrated into Google Voice, something that let you do very interesting experiments like the one described in a (very popular) post I wrote many months ago, that is how to make calls from Google Voice to Skype. He goes on to write,

“

“smart guys like Andy, Craig, Vincent and, last but not least,  Michael Robertson (the man behind Gizmo5) made the first step towards this deal a few years ago or, let’s put it another way, were creating the foundations of what could potentially become the main disruption in the VoIP space of the past fifteen years. Impressive, right?
Hats off to these guys and congratulations to everyone involved. Take a look at this interesting article by Wired for more interesting comments by Andy Abramson about the deal.”
As noted, Gizmo5 already integrates with Google Voice. While Google has not yet significantly monetized Google Voice, there is little doubt that it plans to. Taken together with its recent acquisition of AdMob for $750 million, there is little doubt that Google has significant plans for Google Voice, as it seeks to dominate the mobile search market as it does desktop search. In announcing the AdMob transaction, Dow Jones Newswire noted, “The planned acquisition is intended to allow Google to better serve advertisers as they try to reach mobile users, an area long seen as potentially fertile new ground for ad sellers. Google said the purchase will boost its “existing expertise and technology in mobile advertising, while also giving advertisers and publishers more choice in this growing new area.”
The GoogleGazer believes that in several years, we will look back on these transactions as watershed events in the inevitable merger of the desktop, handheld devices, telecommunications,and the Internet.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Google Voice, Uncategorized Tagged: | , , , , , , , ,

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