Google Talk vs Facetime

VoIP-service in GMail, which was earlier available only in the U.S. and Canada, has appeared in the user accounts in almost all countries of the world - in 38 languages. Here is the list of countries where Gmail Call Phone is NOT currently available: Argentina, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran , Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Peru, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam. With this global intervention, Google has lowered its VoIP rates, making them slightly cheaper than rates of its new main rival - Skype. For example, a call to France costs 8 cents (vs. 16.9 cents in Skype), to USA - 1 (vs. 1.9). As before GMail Call Phone requires quick browser plug-in installation - the same plug-in that is used for video calling in GMail.

A great battle between Google and Skype (Microsoft) for the video calling market continues on a new platform - the Social Web. Last week Google launched (in Beta) their social network Google + and one of it's features is the group video chat Hangouts. And yesterday the built-in Skype-based video chat appeared in Facebook. Both video chat apps work directly in browser, which signals about the transition of video calling applications to web-technologies (although both apps require the installation of a small browser plug-in).

Earlier this year, we forecast the active competition between Skype and Google for the mobile video chat market. And the companies justify our expectations. Yesterday Google launched the (wireless) update of Android-smartphones, that adds voice and video chat to mobile Google Talk. At first Nexus S models will be updated, then all other devices running Android 2.3 and higher. Built-in video chat on Android will work via Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G networks, and will allow to call from a smartphone to GMail and back. Recall that the operating system for tablets Android Honeycomb already has in-built video chat. Meanwhile, Skype is already ahead of its competitor - it already offers video chat for Android and iPhone, and even lets you make video calls between these devices.

It is pleasant that though GMail video chat hasn't become the second Skype and does not bring any revenue to Google, the company still continues its development. Besides, it is personally lead by Christopher Vander Mey, Senior Product Manager for Google Apps. Apparently, the company has big plans for utilizing video chat in business.   And another confirmation for this guess is the latest new feature - improved video quality (it can be turned on in GMail Labs). Now the video chat supports VGA video (640x480), and the picture looks more clear, the CPU is less loaded and internet connection may be lower. According to Vander Mey, it's all thanks to new technology of hardware-accelerated video decoding based on H.264 (and, it is not the result of the GISP acquisition but Google's own development). Note, that if you want to enable video chat in GMail, you need to install this plug-in.

Few days ago the analytical company Frost & Sullivan stated that Google will soon storm the unified communications market, which is dominated by Cisco, Avaya and Microsoft. After all, Google has GMail, Google Voice, GTalk, Buzz, Gizmo5, Android, GISP and it remains just to combine all these technologies into single offering. And Google has decided to immediately confirm this forecast - from today GMail allows you to make and receive phone calls (thanks to the integration with Google Voice and Gizmo5). Meanwhile the VoIP service in GMail is available only in US.

Video chat in GTalk (or more exactly, in GMail) has appeared more than a year ago. And we were confident that Skype will get the very strong competitor. Nevertheless, Skype's market share hasn't suffered at all. Even GMail users mainly continue using Skype for video calls. Probably, it's a question of a habit and Skype's great popularity. And perhaps, when Google adds calls to regular phones with the help of acquired Gizmo5 - this won't also change anything. Without offering some new revolutionary features, pushing Skype from the market will be extremely difficult. Especially now, when Skype introduced group video calling. However, it seems Google has a new idea. Today the company announced the acquisition of Swedish developer of VoIP and videoconferencing solutions - GIPS. GIPS technologies are used in Yahoo Messenger, Cisco WebEx and Lotus Sametime. And in addition, GIPS has created the best engine for video chat on Android.

Multiple sources (including TechCrunch) say that almost exactly Google has bought  Gizmo5 for $30 millions. If it's true, Skype now will get the very powerful competitor. Interesting, that month ago Skype was going to buy Gizmo5 itself in order to replace the Global Index technology (that was a reason of lawsuit) with Gizmo5 SIP-based platform. But now when Skype has after the Skype settlement, though, Gizmo5’s strategic value to Skype sort of plummeted. But, it turns out, that Gizmo5 has the strategis value to Google. And, really, it ideally fits Google's communication plans. First of all, GTalk can call only between internet users, but can't call PSTN and mobile phones. Gizmo5 will easily provide this opportunity to GTalk users.

Sold out to Microsoft, Skype on the one hand secured itself the bright future in the stable Microsoft empire, and on the other hand - killed its bright future as a global public communications service. No one ever will look at Skype, as at the independent service that suits everyone and works everywhere. This niche is now empty and someone has to take it. Besides, we expect that in the near future the communication services, owned by Microsoft rivals, will also make the considerable steps forward in order to keep the balance of power. Here are 5 products that (we think) will compete with Microsoft Skype:

Fring was the first video chat application on the iPhone. However, without frontal camera, it was not very helpful. But together with the front camera on iPhone, Apple introduced  it's own video chat program Facetime, that supported two-way video calls and immediately replaced Fring. Now Fring strikes back. Today, the strartup has launched the new iPhone app, which also supports two-way video calls, and in addition, has two major advantages over Facetime. First, it works via 3G (and Facetime - only via Wi-Fi), and second, it allows iPhone users to communicate with those who use Android and Nokia S40 smartphones, that run Fring (and Facetime supports video calls only between iPhones). However, the benefits of Facetime - are simplicity and iPhone native integration (to start a video call - you don't need to launch third-party program), and higher video quality.

A couple of weeks ago we suggested that Google is going to shift the video communications market (and win Skype), betting on mobile video calls. Today we can accurately say that very soon mobile video chat will become a huge market and the IT giants will fight for it. It's enough to watch the Facetime (iPhone 4 video chat) presentation to understand this. Since June 24 Apple will start selling iPhone 4 with the front camera and video over Wi-Fi in US, and it's obvious that to the and of this year millions of users will make video calls via the iPhone, and Apple will become the world's largest mobile video chat provider. But it will be only the short term win. Then Skype, Google and other players will join the fight.