Skype Dialed Into Google Pack
Google's assortment of software for computer users now includes Skype, eBay's multi-billion dollar VoIP acquisition, as an option alongside Google Talk.
Plenty of Google and non-Google software can be found in the Google Pack, and the company has recently slipped Skype into the optional software section.
Google has been portrayed as a potential eBay/PayPal competitor. The company added Google Base, a database where users can add virtually anything, including items they wish to sell, and Google Checkout, a payment processing system, over the course of 2006.
Skype does offer some functionality beyond Google Talk, Google's IM and voice chat client. Google Talk only connects with other users of the software, while Skype can connect to and receive calls from landline phones.
The addition of Skype to Google Pack likely occurred as a result of the deal between eBay and Google in August. Google will provide click to call advertising in Skype and Google Talk, so it makes sense for Google to promote Skype to Google users.
Couple that with recent chatter from Google's CEO Eric Schmidt about providing free mobile phones to people and having advertising support the service. Make those phones Skype-capable, equip them with WiFi, and people can use them anyplace they find a wireless access point.
Of course, speculation about Google's future would not be complete without an obligatory suggestion that with all the dark fiber Google has purchased, they could be approaching a point where they could offer VoIP through a wireless network they control.
A few hundred mobile datacenters dropped at peering points across the US would give Google's free VoIP phone-using customers plenty of latency-free connections to make their calls and view local ads on their handsets.
It's a matter of when, not if.
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Tags: Skype, Google
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