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One Life: One Phone Number |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 03 July 2007 |
Google has confirmed the rumours that it has acquired communications management company GrandCentral Communications which promises to allow you to manage all your phone numbers through one interface and gives you one phone number - for life.
Wesley Chan, Product Manager confirmed the rumour on this blog.
Chan describes the GrandCentral Communications offering as "an innovative service that lets users
integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into
one account, which can be accessed from the web.
"We think
GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide
services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between
our users," he wrote in the blog.
GrandCentral would assist users to do things like make incoming calls ring on all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This
way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job, explains Chan.
"The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to
your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add
the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot
more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone
while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to
your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more
control over your phones," he writes.
Grand Central also offers a callback-style VoIP service.
The guys at Grand Central also offered up a few details
of their own on the acquisition. How much Google paid for the company
is not one of them. The Acquisition Q&A says tat a limited number
of invitations will be available for continued Beta testing of the
service, but that there are no specific product plans for the
technology at this time.
If you have a U.S.
telephone number, you can sign up for an invitation at www.grandcentral.com. Current GrandCentral customers will continue to have uninterrupted access to the service.
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