Five well-known, but less-obvious, VoIP companies to watch

By Phil Hochmuth, Network World, 01/29/07

GOOG … IBM … MSFT … ORCL … EBAY: these could be among the symbols floating on your day-trading dashboard. But Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and eBay are also among the most influential companies in the VoIP market. Here’s a rundown on what these technology giants are doing with VoIP:

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Google

IT administrators are already dealing with the trend of employees forwarding corporate e-mail accounts to services such as Google’s Gmail. (A New York Times story reports that BEA Systems estimates 30% of its employees forward corporate e-mail to Gmail, and other personal accounts). If employees are not satisfied with the e-mail services provided by an employer, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that users will also seek out voice services such as Google’s GoogleTalk in order to gain more mobility and flexibility for voice service. Google is also seeking its way into more mobile devices, which enterprise users could adopt over a company cell phone or landline. A Google Talk client for BlackBerrys is available, and the Google VoIP/chat client is also available for the Nokia 770 handheld device. Google’s relationship with VoIP service provider VoIP Inc. is another intriguing development, as VoIP Inc. provides services that can connect Google Talk clients to public telephone exchanges, 800 numbers and 911 services.

IBM

While not competing directly among VoIP vendors, IBM’s presence in the market still looms large. The company’s services arm is among the top installers and support companies behind large-scale IP telephony rollouts, with VoIP products from Avaya and Cisco. And last fall, IBM began an exclusive partnership with 3Com to resell its VCX VoIP platform on IBM’s Series i line of servers (formerly known as the iSeries, and the AS/400). This is among the most tightly coupled software/hardware offerings between a VoIP vendor and server maker in the industry, observers say. IBM also plays in other voice and speech technology areas, such as voice recognition, as well as call center management and disaster recovery.