In 2007, Google acquired a company called GrandCentral. The purchase seemed to herald Google’s move into what may otherwise be a unique business. Subsequent to that they changed the name of the application to Google Voice. Today they announced that they’d this interesting technology would be available to smartphone users. So what gives?
The GrandCentral application allows Google to offer users a unique phone number to which anyone can call and you can route to any phone of your choice. In fact, it can route to a land-line, a cell phone, office number, and so on. You can even use the service to make the call for you with a click of your mouse and your phone will ring when the call connects.
So what’s so cool about this? Besides having a universal voice mail system – for free? Remember that they assign you a unique phone number? You can use this number for any reason say for instance to start up a small business with low initial expenses, but with a separate phone number for now. You can set up a Google Voice account and have all your small business calls routed to your Google Voice number. Now, this isn’t an ideal small business strategy if your business grows and you want to write off your business calls because you might need a dedicated phone number to reference when tax time comes around. The benefit is to get yourself started while masking your current phone number. For that reason, I’ve signed up and will look to use my Google Voice account until I’m ready to use a dedicated number to make and receive calls.
Of course there’s also Skype for that as well.
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