Google Enters the Phone Business

Google has acquired GrandCentral Communications. They made the announcement this week on the official Google blog.

GrandCentral Communications provides tools so that you have one telephone number. The service then will locate you by trying your home phone, cell phone, or work phone. It also has features such as personalized voice mail greetings based on the caller. I used a service similar to this for many years, but ultimately gave it up due to cost. My provider could only provide toll-free telephone numbers which resulted in expensive per-minute call rates. It would route calls to different telephones based on a schedule that I could setup via their web site. There are other players in this field, which I think is a key tool for any single or two person business.

I am unsure if GrandCentral was open to the public prior to the Google buyout, but at this point GrandCentral is only available as a beta for select users. They will probably expedite opening the service under the Google umbrella. I am curious how Google will integrate this into their total service package.