Google vs Skype for Small Business

Google and Skype both have hosted voice and IM offerings for small (or not so small) businesses. Google’s targets (text) messaging and collaboration applications (mail, calendar, web portal). Skype’s offering predictably targets voice features (PC to PC calling, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Conference calling, etc) as well as feeds (RSS, blogs) and file transfers.

A provocative Economist article recently discussed increased use of Google email and IM apps (subscription required) to replace enterprise deployed messaging services. The thesis was that innovative technologies increasingly emerge in the consumer space, rather than the enterprise space, nowadays. I think this trend can be clearly seen in the invasion by AIM and Yahoo Messenger as mission critical applications on trading floors of the worlds largest investment banks. If I were starting a business nowadays, I am sure I would be very inclined to use Skype or Google rather than operate my own on-premise messaging infrastructure.

~ by lawlorg on January 31, 2007.