Google's VOIP Strategy

s Google getting set to compete with the telcos – or maybe change voice communication forever? It’s starting to look that way.

Google Talk Beta is a 1.5 MB instant-messenger download for Windows Vista, XP or 2000 whose functions resemble AOL Instant Messenger or Skype: primarily voice, chat and file transfers. Google explains the service in depth on its Web site.

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There is currently no Mac and Linux version of Google Talk, although Google says Mac and Linux fans can communicate with Google Talk users via any of several IM clients that support the open XMPP standard. Google Talk doesn’t currently use the SIP standard and its traffic won’t be encrypted until the full release. Google currently lists Trillian, GAIM, iChat, Adium and Psi as interoperable with Google Talk.

If you have a Gmail account, Google Talk automatically loads your contacts as potential persons to call or IM. In addition, you can save IM chats to your Gmail account or specify that a chat be “off the record” and not saved by either user’s Gmail account, although people using non-Google IM clients could potentially save chats on their PCs. (This feature is either a Sarbanes-Oxley blessing or a pretrial-discovery curse, depending on your perspective.)

Google could go in several directions from this first step toward telephony. Most obviously, Google Talk is another piece in Mountain View’s continuing effort to assemble a Google desktop (and perhaps even the fabled Google OS). However, Google’s legions of Ph.D.s may be up to something much more disruptive.

In December 2006, Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise division, told Internet News that Google would ride into enterprise settings on the shoulders of people who already use Google apps on their own. Some observers question this strategy, considering some Google tools haven’t had great luck with consumers yet. Om Malik, for one, observed that as of July 2006 only 44,000 people used Google Talk for IM conversation.

Now come the interesting parts: First, Girouard said Google would beef up Google Talk to increase compatibility with traditional telecom systems and other vendors’ VoIP offerings. Second, in the same article, Forrester researcher Charlene Li said Google might make those voice files searchable. Girouard’s and Li’s remarks open up major speculation as both a telco competitor and as a game-changer.