Google's enigmatic voice service known as Google Voice once again surfaces to headlines. It's becoming a silly ritual: Google unveils something trivial like number portability and the blogs light up with praise rather than condemnation that it’s been missing for so long.
This March, Google Voice will celebrate its two-year anniversary. The service is actually older, but it was March 2009 that Google launched its Grand Central acquisition under its current brand. The service is reasonably impressive--it includes a phone number, free long distance, unified messaging, smartphone clients, domestic long distance, and more for no charge. That's hard to beat. But the service also has a number of serious limitations restricting its appeal to cost-conscious consumers and small businesses.
Google's exact intentions with Google Voice are the subject of speculation, as the search giant has little to say. Certainly, it has great potential. Combining Voice with many other Google services, the company could create a powerful unified communications offering that would be difficult for competitors to match. Presumably, Google has some master plan--though the service has no revenue (no fees or advertising). Google assures customers the service will remain free at least through 2011--and should it eventually begin charging for the service, its popularity will likely decline rapidly. Google spent approximately $50 million to acquire Grand Central (which had no revenue), and then another $30 million for Gizmo5. This month, it acquired SayNow, which offers similar services with a social twist, for an undisclosed amount. But why?
I have written numerous articles on Google Voice and have long held the belief that Google would create an enterprise class unified communications solution, with Google Voice combined with several other services including Google Apps. All the pieces are there for a fairly compelling solution. But that notion is dwindling. Time marches on and the revenue, support, and feature questions are still ignored. The application remains marginally acceptable for business use and poorly integrated with other Google services. Meanwhile real progress occurs throughout the competitive landscape--the competitive gap grows.
As stated, in its most recent move, the Google Voice team launched number porting. That's right--for a small fee (though higher than most) Google Voice can be made to work with an existing number. It has been one of the big limitations and there was no doubt at least one high-five as a result. But allowing numbers to port-in was not a technical achievement--the ability was always there --all that's occurred was the decision to allow it. Google previously ported numbers, such as Michael Arrington's of TechCrunch. This new super ability, however, came with a limitation: only mobile numbers can ported. Porting mobile numbers generally cancels mobile contracts. David Kravets of Wired describes his number porting ordeal as an "LSD trip gone awry".
Late last year, Google Voice was enabled for Google Apps users. Now, this really could have been exciting news, but it wasn't. Gmail is a collection of Google's consumer services, and Google Apps are largely the same geared for business. Until recently, Google Voice was limited to Gmail users, effectively restricting the service to consumer use. Moving Google Voice to Google Apps falsely implied the arrival of a business edition.
It turns out, all that really happened was an update to the user permissions to work with the private domain (yourdomain.com). There is no admin portal, such as with email, where administrators can update rules, access logs, or even redirect numbers. Google still does not offer any form of SLA or a method to obtain live support. Users of the Google Voice consumer service can’t move their number over to the Apps service, and using a consumer service version with the apps version creates havoc with Google’s ridiculous limitations around multiple accounts.
Google Voice is really a tragedy of lost potential. The service is rarely highlighted at Google conferences, has no public road map, no revenue model, no support, limited integration with other services, no APIs, no assurances or SLAs, and although the past year saw a few product improvements--the vast majority of its key features are left untouched and unfinished.
For example, the service offers a four-person conference bridge, but it’s a bit tricky to use. There is no way to call into the bridge--participants have to call the Google Voice number and it’s up to the receiver to answer each call with a "5". Call recording is a nice feature, but it’s only available for the entire incoming call, and the call must be answered with a "4". Just the notion of answering with a digit can be problematic for headset and/or mobile users. Wireless headsets don’t have digit keys. Some mobile phones don't offer up a dial-pad until the call has been answered. Where's Google's legendary voice recognition services? None of these services has improved since the initial beta unveiling of Google Voice.
The voice mail service makes an entertaining attempt at transcription. It's not particularly accurate, but an interesting feature bundled at no charge. However, Google Voice does not offer true unified messaging. The voice messages get sent to email, but that's it. Playing them in email does not mark them read, and deleting them in email does not delete them in Google Voice. The integration gaps don't stop there. There is no way to dial from Google Contacts, and Google Chat's presence indicator still doesn’t indicate if the user is on a call. Calls ring regardless of calendar settings, and despite the fact that Latitude updates location information on presence, there is no way for location to impact call routing. This is basic stuff, and its absence was perfectly acceptable upon launch, but it’s stoopid now.
The biggest improvement Google Voice users saw over the past two years was the softphone enabled in the browser. That's all it is; there is no way to connect an IP phone to Google Voice, and the softphone only initiates calls from the computer, whereas most other soft clients can also initiate calls with a desk phone.
Perhaps the most powerful part of the Google Voice story is its smartphone clients, which enable passive callerID substitution. However, don't expect much more from the app. Things like a call log (that shows Google Voice calls made from the computer), visual voice mail, or access to call settings are found today in other smartphone clients.
Integration with the browser is another opportunity. Google only offers a plugin for Chrome. It works reasonably well and it’s the only way to get click-to-dial to work. Other browser plugins support more browsers and seem a bit better at detecting numbers. One nice feature of Google Voice is the "Call Me" widget for a web page that conceals a phone number--however it doesn't work with Chrome.
An area where Google does have an advantage over premise based solutions is integrated carrier services. But there is no way to place free on-net international calls or place calls over WiFi or 3G on a mobile. International credits must be pre-purchased, but can't be redistributed among accounts--all of which is available from Skype. The core Google Voice service is available in the USA, and domestically some numbers are blocked. No emergency/911 service is available, and Google Voice generally requires an additional carrier for a complete solution.
Why Google Voice is so neglected, or whether it will change are mysteries. Both the current and previous Google Voice product managers have discussed the huge resources Google has, but evidently that’s servers and bandwidth as opposed to developers. Perhaps that was the logic of acquiring SayNow; a talent grab. The problem is that development and testing takes time, and there is no indication it is much of a priority. Meanwhile, enterprise class services are rapidly evolving from multiple fronts including hosted offerings, premises equipment makers, and Skype. It seems the window is closing, as Google Voice was truly innovative when it launched.
Perhaps it's on top of "Larry's Things To Do as New CEO" list, but probably not.
Dave Michels, principal of Verge1, is frequent contributor and blogs at PinDropSoup.
