Experts deconstruct Google UC

UCStrategies put together a podcast of panelists this week to discuss the launch of the Gmail calling feature and the overall Google unified communications strategy. Although the one million calls in the first 24 hours may speak for themselves, the podcast makes some interesting observations.

Samantha Kane of Kane-MacKay & Associates points out that the Google VoIP offering makes it super easy to set up calls, and in countries without 800 number service she could see the use of Google's offering really taking off. She thinks that although they haven't released for enterprise yet, the basic functionality means "they're going to move along at a pretty amazing clip."

Telecom analyst Jon Arnold chimed in that "this is primarily a consumer play right now but our interest is definitely on those business applications." The Google Apps product charges $50 per user per year but doesn't yet integrate the voice offering. Combining the latest consumer voice play with Gmail and its enterprise apps, Google could have a real business offering. 

An interesting part of the conference call revolved around Google's presence features--a much touted feature of UC. The current calling system does not update one's Gmail status to reflect that a user is on the phone. Calendar events also don't automatically change one's presence in the Google system. However, it looks like a natural step for Google to link all these things to the Gmail chat status update so that users could have real time presence updates based on their calendar meetings or the current activities they are engaging in within the Google Apps sphere.

For more:
- read the transcript or listen to the rest of the discussion here

Related news:
The rise of Google's enterprise empire
Google VoIP offering makes 1 million calls in first 24 hours