Ok so I’m the last to write about Google’s announcement this morning on its acquisition of Global IP Solutions, a major provider of IP-based communications infrastructure with not only its voice and video codecs but also voice and video engines that mean simply “supply me with an Internet connection, a microphone and a set of speakers” and we’ll handle the conversation on your PC or smartphone.

Combine this acquisition with Google’s experience with Google Talk and Google Video Chat, its acquisition of Grand Central to become Google Voice, of On2 for its video codec (used by Skype amongst others) and of Gizmo, Google now has a full set of the underlying tools required to bring out some interesting communications offerings. Can Google integrate these tools, and overcome the inherent management and organization integration issues, to deliver a coherent and effective communications offering? What will we see as end user offerings? And how will Google work with the competition?

After all four weeks ago I had a demonstration at GIPS of a video call received on an iPad (notice I only said “to”). And, as I reported at the time, they basically affirmed that we should be seeing video calling supported on mobile smartphones before year end. Perhaps with a GIPS mobile video engine. Will this now simply be an Android offering or will their offerings also involve smartphone video calling support for Apple’s iPhone/iPad and, say, RIM’s BlackBerry?

It’s interesting to note that I’m already observing the Skype – Google competition in my GMail window. Hover your cursor over the appropriate location at a sender’s name and I get one of two “click-to-call” options: to converse with a contact using Google Talk/Video or to converse directly with the same contact in Skype voice, chat or video:

Google has long been a customer of GIPS for its voice technology and more recently for its video technology on Android. As have Nortel, Cisco (Webex), Communigate (one of the world’s largest suppliers of enterprise email services), Yahoo, IBM/Lotus and many others for both its voice and video technology. It will make for an interesting world of co-opetition.

Other bloggers have made some interesting points:

Thomas Howe, Voyces.com in Tick, Tock, Core, Edge implies that, with the pendulum swinging from the core to the edge, IP-communications infrastructure is going to be supported primarily by two players, Skype and Google:

More important, though, is what these battle lines say about the other players. Which is to say, these guys aren’t even on the battlefield. If fellow Cape Codder David Isenberg is right, and we are in the era of the dumb network, then anyone not-Skype and not-Google is not in the running. Although I agree, appreciate and applaud Orange’s work with their core (in particular, the API program), where are they in this battle? Where is AT&T? Now, doesn’t Verizon’s deal with Skype seem much smarter? To me, it does.

Voxeo’s Dan York, in Google buys GIPS for $68 million – to take on Skype? Apple? Microsoft? gives a short course in IP Communications 101 to explain Google’s motives for this acquisition by pointing out where the real battleground lies:

The issue is that while the control channel is increasingly around the open standard of SIP, which anyone can implement, the “codecs” used in sending media from one endpoint to another have long been a proprietary battleground, particularly with regard to wideband (or “HD audio” as some call it). Yes, there have been and are standards, but usually there have been intellectual property or licensing issues. Now, there is work within the IETF to create a standard wideband codec (and as I wrote earlier, Skype is involved with this effort) but that may take some time and the outcome is not known right now.

But there’s one aspect to this acquisition that can tend to get overlooked – cross licensing. When I worked in the NMR spectroscopy industry during its early evolution in the 1970’s, the two major players (Varian and Bruker) would be filing and acquiring patents and then suing each other. But the final outcome was that both players set up cross licensing arrangements such that the entire NMR spectrometer market benefited by always being able to benefit from the best of both companies’ innovation. And it all subsequently contributed to the rise of Magnetic Resonance imaging that plays such an important role in today’s medical imaging space across six or seven vendors. Will we see Google and Skype cross-licensing their technologies so that overall IP-based communications offerings can ultimately provide best-of-breed services to both their customer bases?

Bottom line: What I see emerging is a communications market where each of Google and Skype will continue to bring forth unique communications offerings that may appear somewhat competitive to their respective customers. Recall the final value add is in the customer benefits exposed by the user interface, not the underlying technology. As a result we can expect a world of co-opetition and cross licensing such that customer offerings by either party are not held back by some intellectual property dispute that really relates to technology and infrastructure in which the customer has no interest. In the end its about growing a bigger market for the benefit of all.

Other posts:

• Alec Saunders on Voyces.com: Google Targets Skype
• Alec Saunders on Saunderslog: GIPS acquired by Google. How does Abramson pick them?
• Rich Tehrani on TMCNet: Google Buys GIPS – Here’s Why where he provides a short history of GIPS and then analyzes some interesting reasons behind what may have motivated Google.
• Garrett Smith on Smith on VoIP: Google the service provider

Update: Andy has written Congrats to The Great Team At GIPS – it’s his 18th client who has been acquired and the second acquisition by Google. He has also given me credit for the small role I played in introducing him to GIPS:

And with this acquisition, for me and my agency, Comunicano, the number of companies to “exit” or in this case “get bought” in the last 8 years now has hit 18. Alec Saunders referenced that feat in his very well written post yesterday. GIPS came to my agency and I in the same way the other 17 had. We were asked to work with them. In this case the door opener was trusted friend and colleague, Jim Courtney, who has known Emerick Woods for longer than most dating back to their days at Quarterdeck. Jim always said that Emerick is the consummate professional, and someone who knows how to win. Looks like Jim’s matchmaking ability came through.

Full disclosure: GIPS CEO Emerick Woods was the Vice-President, Internet of Quarterdeck Corporation in the mid-1990’s who became a mentor to the author on several business development projects at Quarterdeck involving partnerships with ISP’s of the time. Over the past 14 years, Emerick, in his capacity as CEO of several startups, which have gone on to be sold, has hired the author at various times for his business development services. The author, however, has no business relationship with Global IP Sound.

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Ok, so the iPad does not have a camera of any type. But is its form factor not a “natural” format for video calling? When Global IP Solutions put out a press release yesterday I was a bit skeptical about who would take up on their “one way Video Conferencing/Chat capabilities for iPad developers, powered by GIPS VideoEngine™ Mobile”.

We’ve heard a lot of speculation about video calling on the next generation iPhone. Global IP Solutions has been offering their GIPS Video Engine Mobile to iPhone developers for the past several months. When the iPad came along they were able to port it quite readily to the iPad as announced in the press release linked above:

GIPS VideoEngine Mobile supplies iPad developers with a simple to integrate, high-level software API that contains the complex video conferencing/video chat capabilities [that can be embedded] into applications running on Apple’s iPad operating system.

Of course without a camera of any type on the iPad a video conversation involving the iPad would have to be one way (receive) video and two-way voice. One had to wonder why would there be interest in video calling using the iPad?

Yesterday the answer came home loud and clear. I had a demonstration of a video call received on an iPad over the GIPS internal WiFi network. Having experienced lots of video on the iPhone and BlackBerry Bolds (usually You Tube) and video calling using Skype, one aspect of this experience turned me from skeptic to advocate for using iPad for video calls.

The iPad form factor is an ideal format for receiving video calls. Its medium “family” picture frame size is very familiar to consumers. Propped up in a vertical position on a coffee table or physical desktop, it would be receiving video in a format and size that is quite suitable for family participation in a video call. With the accompanying (wideband and superwideband) HD voice, it delivered a perfectly natural conversation. Overall, the iPad is a natural size for video calling.

Where will we see this? Keep in mind that Global IP Solutions delivers engines that take voice and video input and transmit it efficiently over the Internet to a final destination. Their customers, who specify and provide the end user interface to the GIPS engines, include Yahoo, Lotus/IBM, Communigate, Nimbuzz (with an iPhone app), Citrix Online and many other vendors of IP-based voice and video services. And, again from the press release:

As video access becomes available from Apple, GIPS VideoEngine will support 2-way video chat/conferencing.

Bottom line: From this demonstration, and listening to the sessions at this past week’s eComm America 2010, by year end I expect low cost and mobile video calling and conferencing services will be breaking out in a big way:

• We’ll see mobile smartphone video calling not only on iPhone but also on Android devices, (RIM, BlackBerry?). Read through the GIPS blog to get more in-depth perspective on why I say this.
• Where feasible with the device display screen, the video calling standard will become HD over consumer broadband connections with the launch of the HD webcams for Skype in the next month or so.
• But the resolution standard for smartphones and tablets will actually be determined by the individual device’s screen properties; in general they will require less wireless data bandwidth than HD video calling over (cable, DSL) consumer broadband.
• We’ll be seeing low cost multi-party video conferencing solutions from a variety of vendors bringing onsite telepresence to small business.
• And there is reason to justify a built-in video camera on the next generation of iPad (but on the dipslay side a la MacBook Pro).

Update: San Francisco’s KRON-TV also visited Global IP Solutions last week and witnessed prototype video calls using mobile phones:

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As the supplier of a key element in delivering voice-enabled solutions, Global IP Solutions’ activities provide a window into the world of voice- and video-enabled applications and IP-based communications beyond the Skype ecosystem. The GIPS Voice Engine contains API’s that allow a service provider or application publisher to readily incorporate robust, reliable, high quality voice and video calling into their offerings. A recent announcement from Global IP Solutions provides a classic example where we catch a glimpse of the role of IP-based communications in delivering commercial and large enterprise communications solutions.

I first learned of CommuniGate Systems as a provider of Internet-based communications infrastructure software solutions when one of my business planning clients from ten years ago, a business services ISP, was installing the CommuniGate Pro Messaging Suite as the backbone of their email offerings. From that time until last June, when an acquiring ISP failed to provide an appropriate level of support, my own email had been run through this particular CommuniGate-enabled server.

But CommuniGate, building on their CommuniGate Pro communications architecture, has gone on to be a major supplier of unified communications infrastructure. From their website:

CommuniGate Systems’ goal is to consolidate all forms of Internet Communications into one address space, making the single address for email, IM, VoIP and video calling, more productive, portable, and independent of tariffs and tolls of closed network topologies. We see all Internet Communications becoming accessible to multiple media types through one account, providing true portability of an “address” no matter where you access the Internet.

Communigate’s 12,000 strong customer base services over 2 billion email accounts through broadband, wireline and wireless service providers as well as larger enterprises who require “private” communications services. Secure airline communications services, such as required by British Airways, is one significant vertical enterprise market for CommuniGate.

In the fall of 2007 CommuniGate announced the launch of a Flash-based unified communications client, Pronto!, that now serves as a “single dashboard for e-mail, collaboration, secure instant messaging, RSS feeds, and Rich Media”. Pronto!, with an Outlook-style interface and built on Adobe Air, supports contacts, calendar, email, Instant Messaging, voice calling, conference calling, voicemail, news, photos, audio and video player. Users can access their communications services via the Pronto! client on any PC and network connection.

Over time CommuniGate has been adding features to Pronto!; for instance, last summer they announced the addition of video mail, contact and calendaring features, RSS “news” feed support and audio media support. But they also had been evaluating solutions that would improve the voice calling experience with a more robust voice engine that incorporates the enhanced sound quality characteristic of wideband audio HD Voice. After an investigation of their options over the past few months, it was announced at the end of March that CommuniGate had signed an agreement with Global IP Solutions to incorporate the GIPS Voice Engine into Pronto.

“Global IP Solutions has been a pioneer in HD Voice for many years. They have over 800 million downloads and a growing list of brand name customers to prove it,” says Jon Doyle, VP Business Development CommuniGate Systems. “GIPS has a unique engineering team that is focused on addressing the processing issues related to IP communications on various network topologies. With GIPS superior engineering skills, we are able to deliver on the promise of a truly business grade UC experience.”

In a recent interview with CommuniGate’s John Doyle and Larry Golob, GIPS Senior Director of Business Development it was pointed out that:

• CommuniGate was seeking a solution that met HD Voice specifications supporting 8KHz wideband audio during voice calls; the GIPS wideband iSAC codec meets these specifications.
• However, they were also looking for a full voice engine package that could call quality issues such as jitter, packet loss, echo cancellation while adapting readily to network congestion conditions through bandwidth management features.
• In the future, CommuniGate may elect to investigate Skype’s superwideband SILK voice codec for incorporation into their GIPS Voice Engine; however, as its royalty-free licensing had only recently been announced, they would consider the SILK codec at some point in the future, especially if customer demand existed
• CommuniGate is also evaluating the expansion of the role of video in Pronto!; they will be evaluating GIPS video technology later this year.

While services using Pronto! are distributed to end users via either Internet Service Providers or large enterprise “closed network” operations, one can experience Pronto! by setting up an account at TalktoIP.com.

A final question: how will Pronto! users be able to have access via mobile smartphones? Is there an opportunity for GIPS’ mobile offerings?

Bottom Line: Meeting large enterprise and service provider requirements for low cost, secure IP-based communications creates a separate market space – of significant size – not addressed by Skype’s current business model and strategy. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if CommuniGate incorporates connections with Skype users as another offering within their unified communications suite. Certainly Skype for SIP opens up an interesting opportunity for CommuniGate to consider as they move forward.

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