What does Google's New "Call Phone" Gmail Feature Mean for Unified Communications?

By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor

The most-obvious inference anyone can make from Google’s new integration of VoIP calling into Gmail is that Google finally has a product that can challenge Skype (News - Alert). Almost accidentally, to the extent the “Call Phone” feature, Skype “and other similar applications" reduce the amount or percentage of paid-for cross-border calling, they reduce revenue for telcos offering such services. 

The less-obvious inferences might have to do with how the new move reshapes, challenges, displaces or complements other “unified communications” products and services. To be sure, “unified communications” is hard to define. Lots of people now speak about “collaboration,” or “unified communications and collaboration.”

Some might point out that the confusion exists because suppliers are trying to sell “the same old thing” using “new spin.” Recently, video-based communications have tended to displace the language about “UC” almost entirely, suggesting that the sales prospects are in video conferencing and telepresence, rather than call features, desktop integration of PC apps and phones, mobile and business number integration, unified voicemail or email boxes, conferencing or remote access.

The obvious difference does remain that business and consumer apps have distinct requirements. But one would have to note that, for a consumer user, Gmail now provides most of the touted value of unified communications to some extent. 

Gmail now supports and unifies instant messaging, video, text messaging, chat, calendar and email, on any device, at any location, with broadband Internet access, mobile and fixed, at least for consumers on PCs. 

At the moment, “Call Phone (News - Alert)” is restricted to PCs, and does not run on mobiles, but since mobiles already have voice communications, “Call Phone” works about the same way a business phone system does, creating features users can use while tethered or mobile. “Call Phone” does not work for “Google (News - Alert) Apps for Business,” at this point. 

Still, the point is that it increasingly is clear that “unified communications,” a concept developed for organizational communications, already is happening in the consumer market, but in ways adapted for the consumer market. 

In many cases, what needs to be unified are social posts and updates, calendar updates, text and instant messages and email, presence and location information, not voice. For many in the consumer market, unifying telephone numbers has dropped way down the list of value, if it is not completely irrelevant because the person only uses a mobile, or does not want to be reached by organizational of business messages on a personal device. 

Users might, or might not, care about a unified voice mail capability that puts all personal and “work” messages in one place. 

What does seem clear is that “Call Phone” puts an awful lot of a consumer’s communication requirements in one application, in fact, in a browser. These days, unified communications increasingly is something of a “done deal” in the consumer space, while “UC” deployments slowly increase in the enterprise space. 

Consumers don’t have to worry about return on investment for their unified communications experiences, but businesses do. One might inartfully suggest that business end users do understand the UC value proposition, but that the value is not high enough to drive immediate adoption, because significant costs must be incurred to obtain the benefits. 

One reason telepresence or other video conferencing services, appliances and systems are getting traction is that they offer a relatively clear and straight-forward value proposition: spend money on video conferencing to save money on travel, especially internal travel by organizational participants. 

And though it is not as easy to quantify, it is rather simple to weigh the advantages of impromptu visual contact with either customers, prospects or internal work team members and suppliers. 

As for more-traditional unified communications services, it might not be too far from the market to say that UC in the enterprise is a more-complicated matter than many might have thought. 

It isn’t completely clear that adopting a single, unified platform, though better in many ways, is necessary to gain most of the advantages. Many organizations might say that simply making email usable on mobile phones solves most of the original problems. With or without robust presence features, text messages supply much of the value presence touts. Most people don’t need presence to quickly try and contact somebody else by text message. And third-party IM systems do supply presence information.

For some large organization buyers, UC adoption largely is a matter of “new phone systems,” for any number of reasons, including the ability to solve some of the other tasks without switching out phone systems. 

“Call Phones” likely will be seen as a Skype competitor, as it should. What is harder to assess is what it might mean for perceptions. To some extent the business value of unified communications will be shaped by their experiences as consumers, or the ability to use consumer tools in a work context. 

(source: http://hosted-voip.tmcnet.com/feature/articles/97516-what-does-googles-new-call-phone-gmail-feature.htm)