Google Talk - My Prediction
You may not realise it yet, but the latest service released by Google, called Google Talk will in my opinion revolutionise the telephony market, the future heading of IM and therefore presence.
Some facts:
1. Google is big - it is a company secret but it is estimated that Google has close to 100,000 machines in data centres across the world for current search, gmail, maps etc.
2. They have recently purchased fiber across the United States. ie They own their own internet backbone.
3. They have announced that they are doing another IPO and will raise US$4bn, with no announcement on what they will spend it on.
What they have announced: New Instant messaging service with voice. If you haven't seen it, the client they released is very basic and is not getting anybody excited, but that is because people are only looking at the client.
The real announcement is this:
1. Open standard IM protocol XMPP- ie anybody can build a client and connect to the Google Talk servers, ie roll your own presence and IM. There is already a number of existing IM clients that support XMPP (or Jabber protocol).
2. SIP - announced to be supported in the near future, they currently do voice using XMPP. ie in future existing softphones, physical sip handsets adapters and PBXs will just connect.
3. Federation - Google will do interconnect with other networks, "We look forward to federating with any service provider who shares our belief in enabling user choice and open communications. " With Earthlink and SIPPhone's Gizmo Project already announced.
4. They support Global IP Sound codecs (same codecs used by Skype, and considered by many the best for Internet VOIP), ie Skype will not have a quality advantage.
In summary, with the size of Google and using open standards to help consolidate the currently rather fragmented internet voice market, it won't be long before I have a physical SIP phone connected to Google (or a federated partner) and interconnected to everything (that matters), including PSTN with indial numbers, thats my prediction. If I was a telco not in the data space I would be very scared.
