Google Voice will also be a boon for Apps business users

For the moment, Google Apps and Google Voice don't play together

I've been using Google Apps for a while, and recently also was given a Google Voice account. Unfortunately, at the moment you can't activate a Google Voice account with a Google Apps ID. You need to use a 'normal' Google account.

This is unfortunate. All of my mail (a 2.2 Gb archive that goes back 9 years) my calendars, and (most importantly) my contacts are on my Google Apps account, not my Gmail account.

So to get the same contacts list to show up in Google Voice, I've had to clone my Google Apps personal contacts file and upload it to the Gmail account. That's a bit clumsy, and keeping them sync'd will be a challenge.

As for the Google Voice account, I like it even though it's not as full-featured as the OneBox account I also have (http://www.onebox.com). OneBox also allows me to set up a repeating schedule determining which phone(s) ring at which time of day, and in what order. OneBox also lets me do things like have my office phone ring for, say, 4 rings, and then try my mobile for 3 rings. I'm not sure how to coordinate Google Voice's rules for voice messaging with the voice mail systems already built into my office phone or mobile phone.

For small businesses, OneBox also provides PBX functions so that people can be reached via a mail phone with switchboard extensions *or* via DID numbers. You also have some choice of telephone numbers, or even blocks of numbers.

You pay for all of that. (My account runs $17/month, and there are surcharges when I make or receive too many calls through their system.)

Google Voice's price is quite attractive, to say the least.

The system would seem to offer quite some potential for logging and managing communications with your contacts. Having a complete record of all email, SMS, and voice traffic that you could tag and label, or search on using the CPUs of the Google cloud, is pretty powerful. Sounds like a nice core capability for a next-generation CRM.

Pete Farmer

Google Voice

I use google calendar and documents for biz but this new feature will be awesome. I almost would have loved for a smaller startup company to come out with this but whatever.

Yahoo, Microsoft, Phone.com, Ringcentral are all missing out because they seem to not have the capacity of creative thinking anymore. All of the indirect and direct competitors will seriously loose market share because of this.

Shaun
Boston Homes

Google Voice

As far as I'm concerned, Google will only enhance what was already a great concept when it was owned by Grand Central. I believe in things made simple that work. Google does just that with everything they touch.

Positioning Google Voice

I expect the Google Number to function as an overlay number that will work with existing business, cell, and home numbers -- at least in the beginning. As such, Google Voice will layer features on top of existing communications services, with the ability to create an integrated solution in the long run.

The speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities open up further opportunities with respect to Google Apps (Docs, spreadsheets, etc) in the future as well.

Regards,
Allen
www.horizoninfoservices.com
www.horizoninformation.com

Why get another phone number?

If I have the perfect phone number which I control, why would I want to get another number from Google that I wouldn't control (even if they built it into my Google Apps account)? I'd rather Google spend more time on Google Contacts app within Google Apps.