2010 Year in Review: Barbarians at the gate
December 23, 2010 — 9:35am ET | By Mike Dolan

Long ago, the Roman Empire built citadatels deep in the northern lands of Europe in an attempt to conquer the world. They'd defeat locals in battles then strike deals with the 'barbarians' to make them 'loyal' subjects. Eventually, these outsiders got restless and they'd come bashing down the gates of the Roman settlements. Today there are barbarians at the gates of VoIP empires everywhere. Outsider companies and their once outsider approaches are becoming the order of the day. Unlike the Roman's, it's best we not to underestimate their strengths. Two such barbarians we should worry about--or praise--are Skype and Google.
Skype: There was probably a time when the VoIP establishment looked at Skype and thought it was a cute idea that would never become a threat to their serious business. Skype was a clever way to make free or cheap phone calls over the Internet, big deal. Then Skype grew up and became the player it is now. Skype for Business which was once a glimmer in the eyes of its creators is now real (launching out of beta testing in August with 2,400 customers and despite some recent set backs, the company is pushing into the enterprise market with some serious features. Skype Connect hooks into a company's SIP-based PBX so that companies can make calls from their deskphones. The services came out of beta certified for Avaya, Cisco, SIPfoundry, ShoreTel and other OEM products. The company offers a beta version of its group video chat--essentially desktop based teleconferencing. Competing with most unified communications offerings out there, Skype offers voice, video, messaging, teleconferencing and even an array of mobile applications for road warriors. The service recently integrated features with Facebook.
Last January, we reported that Skype accounted for 12 percent of international calls. We can only imagine what that number might be today. The company had over 23 million users online before its serviced crashed yesterday. As Skype gets more powerful, it continues to build deals with big players like Verizon, Avaya, Facebook and LinkedIn. It recently went on a hiring spree to build out its services to connect with other company's offerings with cloud integration. Who knows where we will see it go next--perhaps that deskphone right there next to your coffee mug?
Google: The search giant hasn't yet launched its enterprise VoIP service yet despite rumblings that it might do so in 2010. It did however, launch a true Voice component of its Google Voice/Gmail Chat/Video Call service. In August, Google launched its Gmail calling service which offered free calls throughout the U.S. from the Gmail inbox. With the flip of a switch Google added a new function to its popular email system, essentially deploying VoIP to the desktops of hundreds of millions of Gmail users.
In addition to this new calling feature which clearly puts Google into the business of providing call services to users, the company has a suite of services called Google Apps which seeks to provide cloud-based communications, collaboration and productivity to businesses. The Google Apps service provides companies with applications ranging from Microsoft Word replacements to file sharing and bigger Gmail inboxes. Google claims to have over 3 million businesses using its Apps service. In November it released Google Voice for Apps giving businesses access to the call forwarding service that allows users to get calls on all their phones--a popular feature for most unified communications (UC) services today--and a powerful voice mail service that rivals most enterprise offerings. The Apps service even integrated with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook services for companies that don't want to give up all their old habits.
Combine these things with the companies new calling features, its video chat feature, its chat and SMS from the inbox features as well as its mobile operating system and fleet of mobile phones that integrate smoothly with its products and you've got an outsider looking into the UC world winding up its trebuchet. Although a fully enterprise version of their Gmail Calling system hasn't launched--not to mention Google Voice still experiences outages every now and then--and they haven't made any huge announcements about expanding their video calling functions, the continued expansion of their Apps ecosystem on their millions of users testing their call services means they are sure to make some big moves in 2011. A few days ago, the company extended its free calling for its users (which was expected to expire at the end of 2010) to all of 2011. The calls are free still only for U.S. users calling the U.S. and Canada--with low rates to call other countries, but who knows where Google plans to take the service next year? PBX integration, enterprise deployments, video conferencing, telepresence rooms? It is best not to underestimate this outsider either.


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