VoIP - GrandCentral becomes Google Voice

MaureenA — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:26:00 GMT

Google relaunched its VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service GrandCentral as Google Voice.

Purchased by Google in July 2007, GrandCentral clients have been able to use the VoIP solution despite Google not doing much with it during the past two years. But it looks like they had a plan all along. It's more apparent than ever that Google's goal is to meet the needs of small business owners with e-mail, document management and now VoIP. Over the years, Google has been building a platform that is very business-centric and perhaps now even more appealing.

Google Voice offers all the same capabilities that were available under the original GrandCentral name: call forwarding, conferencing and recording. However, Google has made some noticeable improvements. New features include: voicemail transcription into SMS (text) or e-mails that can be viewed on a PC or mobile phone; search and archive of all SMS that were sent or received; directory assistance with GOOG-411; and the ability to screen voicemails by listening live as the person leaves the message.

Should you sign up? If you're not currently a GrandCentral customer you may have to wait. Google will be offering the VoIP service to current GrandCentral users first, and to other customers in the near future.

GrandCentral for Your Small Business

Administrator — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:29:00 GMT

One of the many challenges that many small businesses face is that establishing a new and unique phone number for every website that you come up with can be expensive. While VoIP does provide some solace in terms of price, another option might be to use solutions such as Google's GrandCentral, a service which offers "one phone number for everything".

GrandCentral has been in private beta for months. If you've been waiting on your own invitation, you can sign up now, courtesy of Blogger.com. The word on the street was that this was only for Google's Blogspot users, but follow the link and you'll find that anyone can sign up. Once you're in (and I have not tried this yet, so post in the comment if I'm wrong) you should be able to invite a few other people (maybe even yourself which would give you multiple numbers for all your small business needs).

Previous Coverage of GrandCentral:
Google acquired GrandCentral back in early July of 2007.

'Net Features : grandcentral

VoIP - GrandCentral becomes Google Voice

GrandCentral for Your Small Business