Microsoft Skype P2P No Threat to Google Voice Cloud

It's been tempting for media and analysts to look at Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider Skype as an assault on the Google Voice cloud calling service.

Few million users

Google Voice has like as not a few million users, during Microsoft would virtually own the VOIP market, as Skype has some 700 million worldwide users. It is believed that between 150 million and 170 million people actively use the PC-to-PC calling service.

One day, you might so then expect to do a search on Google.com and see links to click-to-call businesses with Google Voice. The mechanism already exists in Google's click-to-call ads, although users are using their mobile phones to make those connections.

An obvious starting point is augmenting Microsoft Lync unified communications for businesses with Skype, nevertheless other services just as Live Meeting, Outlook, Bing, Windows Phone 7 and Xbox could all benefit from Skype's communications properties.