Gizmo Project

Earlier this week we broke the story about Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5. Today Google announced the deal on the Google Voice blog.

They aren’t saying much other than that the Gizmo5 team will join the Google Voice team, and that new Gizmo5 signups will be disabled.

One thing this gives Google – a much needed soft phone on the desktop for users to make calls through Google Voice. And integration with Google Talk is likely as well, which will let users of that service access the normal telephone system for inbound and outbound calls.

All in all this pits Google Voice nicely against Skype, which was also looking to buy the company. From the blog post:

Today we’re pleased to announce we’ve acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. (continue reading…)