[asterisk-biz] Google's voice product [OT]

[SIP]

Nitzan Kon wrote:
> --- On Tue, 3/17/09, SIP <sip at arcdiv.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Where, then, is the business plan?
>>     
>
> Grand Central never had one. Google Voice is probably going
> to be the more corporate'd cousin and there will have to be
> some sort of advertising or charging to get the cash flowing.
>
> They say they'll be selling international calls and that's
> going to pay the bills, but I can tell you for a fact it
> will not. For starters there is no possible way they could
> offer better rates than smaller VoIP providers - and they
> don't accept SIP calls anyway. It's going to be a glorified
> Calling Card system - and not a particularly cheap one either.
> It'll fail miserably in paying the bills IMHO.
>
>   
GrandCentral's plan from the get-go was, I think, to get bought. 
Everything about their service screamed "we've no idea how to monetise 
this, so we're hoping someone buys us before we fail."  That is not, 
actually, an uncommon business plan.

>
>> With its constant marketing steamroller, and its massive
>> brand recognition, I don't see, honestly, how 95% of the
>> non-facilities-based consumer voice products out there will 
>> stand up to it.
>>     
>
> Why? GV doesn't even compete with a regular VoIP provider
> directly - they don't offer SIP and you can't hook up anything
> to GV, let alone an adapter or IP phone.
>
>   


See... I'm picturing Google meshing this with Google Talk, which DOES do 
VoIP. It would be silly for them NOT to mesh the two products together, 
and likely trivial to do. I'm guessing we just haven't seen that bit yet.

N.