Google Has Acquired Gizmo5

Last month Skype was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5. It was a perfect backup plan in case all that IP litigation didn’t work out. – Gizmo5’s SIP infrastructure could theoretically replace Skype’s proprietary P2P back end.

After the Skype settlement, though, Gizmo5’s strategic value to Skype sort of plummeted. In the meantime, Google bought them, say multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, for around $30 million in cash. The deal is done, say our sources, and will be announced shortly.

Gizmo5 is a good fit with a number of Google products. Google Talk allows voice calls between users but has no PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones. Gizmo5 does this well already.

And Google Voice is a great VoIP and phone identity service, but they have no endpoint for calls. Gizmo5, which by the way already integrates with Google Voice, is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. In other words, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.
This looks to me like Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product. And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor.

Gizmo5, which was founded in April 2003, has raised $6 million to date, plus an unspecified amount from founder/CEO Michael Robertson. Prior to Gizmo5, Robertson gained notoriety with his founding of MP3.com and later MP3tunes (which has led to big music suing both the company and himself personally).
We’ve reached out to Gizmo5 and Google

READ HERE http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/09/exclusive-google-has-acquired-gizmo5/

Gizmo5
Website:gizmo5.com
Founded:April 1, 2003
Acquired:November 9, 2009 by Google for $30M

The application functions like Skype, supporting IM and VoIP calls. The Gizmo Project has the unique distinction of not only offering IM and VoIP calls, but also… Learn More

Google
Website:google.com
Location:Mountain View, California, United States
Founded:September 7, 1998
IPO:August 19, 2004

Google primarily provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of tools and platforms including its more popular… Learn More
Skype
Website:skype.com
Location:London, United Kingdom
Founded:August 1, 2003
Acquired:September 12, 2005 by eBay for $2.6B in Cash

Skype is a peer-to-peer Internet telephony service that is free for Skype-to-Skype calls. The service also allows Skype users to call mobiles and landlines, and vice-versa. Skype has special charge plans for non-Skype-to-Skype calls. Skype is… Learn More
Google Voice
Company:Google
Website:google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Google Voice is a free Internet service that uses VoIP technology to link phone numbers together. GrandCentral was relaunched as Google Voice on March 11, 2009 with new features, including voicemail transcriptions and SMS managing.
Users of… Learn More
Google Talk
Company:Google
Website:google.com/talk
Launch Date:August 24, 2005

Google Talk is Google’s approach to instant online communications.
GTalk has an in-browser chat function, tied to the iGoogle and GMail pages, with both Video chat and Voice over IP connectivity available.