Google Apps left out of voice chat update

Google Apps for Business users are the Charlie Brown of Gmail. When gmail.com users get all the best new features, we users of Google's private-label Gmail service peer into our Halloween bags and glumly proclaim, "I got a rock."

Yesterday, Gmail announced the ability to use Gmail chat to send and receive voice calls with phone numbers in the US and Canada. The service integrates with Google Voice, so you can give people your Google Voice number, and have incoming calls ring on Gmail chat, in addition to cell phones, landlines, and third-party VoIP services

After Google announced the service bright and early in the morning, I started checking my Google Apps Gmail account compulsively every few minutes to see if the service had been activated. Is it there yet? I asked myself over and over. Is it there yet? Is it there yet? Is it there yet? I had reverted to a five-year-old on a long car trip.

But Google has no immediate plans to integrate voice calling into Google Apps Gmail accounts, a spokesman said. I asked when that might happen, and the spokesman responded in email, "We don't have anything to announce right now."

"Oh, Moooooooooom!" I whined. But it didn't do any good with Google, just as it never worked on my Mom when I was five years old.

Fortunately, there's a fairly simple workaround. If you already have a Google Voice account, then you already have a regular, consumer Google account, because Google Voice doesn't integrate with Google Apps. Simply activate voice chat on Gmail on the Google Voice account. Then connect Google Voice to voice chat, and you're good to go.

You'll have to keep two Gmail windows open -- one for your regular Gmail on Google Apps, and another for the Gmail that you use for voice chat. But that's no big deal.

There's hope somewhere in the distance for us Google Voice users who are also on Google Apps. Google said in May that it plans to integrate all Google applications into Google Apps, including Reader and Google Voice. At that time, presumably we'll be able to integrate Google Voice and Gmail voice chat into our main Gmail accounts.

Mitch Wagner is a freelance technology journalist and social media strategist.