Google picks up VoIP service with Gizmo5, remains vague

It has been one hell of a week for VoIP. Mobile social network Nimbuzz launched an international call service called NimbuzzOut. iBasis, a company that provides international VoIP for operators, launched it’s very own mobile app. And now Google has announced the acquisition of VoIP provider Gizmo5… and is refusing to say what it wants to do with it yet. Hmmm.

What does Gizmo5 do?

It’s your basic on-line VoIP service. It does voice calls from computer to computer (or mobile) over the internet, at much cheaper prices than a phone call would be - and it makes calls over Google Voice. Well, now Google has bought the whole company out.

What will Google be doing with it?

Ehhhh… good question. Gizmo5 hasn’t said anything. Google doesn’t sure has hell hasn’t said anything useful. If you check out the Gizmo5 website, there’s a message saying “New user signup has been suspended and will return when we re-launch.” Google is even less helpful, saying “we don’t have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience.”

What we think?

Ok, so Gizmo5 will be improving the Google Voice service. Given that it’s a VoIP company, we can assume that’s the area they’ll be working in. But this is standard Google Voice strategy at this stage - the project itself didn’t really get legs until Google bought GrandCentral.