May 18, 2010 12:35 PM,

Google to buy GIPS

By Dan O'Shea

The voice/video codec company beefs up Google’s telecom holdings, but what of the iPhone/iPad connection?

Google’s acquisitions unit has moved to acquire another company, Global IP Solutions, that should help the Internet giant round out its growing collection of voice and video communications applications, better arm Google to take on Internet communications juggernaut Skype with Google Voice, and enhance its ability to integrate apps such as high-definition voice with mobile devices using the Android operating system. By appearances, the deal even could give Google a potential hand in the future success of applications for the iPhone and iPad, the Apple devices that compete with Android-based gear.

Google Acquisition Holdings will pay about $68.2 million in cash for GIPS, a key supplier of IP voice and video media processing to a range of companies, including Nortel Networks, IBM and other telecom equipment vendors, as well as known Google competitors such as Yahoo! and AOL, not to mention Google itself.

In a letter to customers and shareholders, GIPS confirmed that Google has been among its customers for several years and that following the acquisition, the 11-year-old company will continue to support all of its current customers. GIPS declined to answer questions from Connected Planet regarding how the deal could affect GIPS’ background involvement in applications currently being developed for the iPhone and iPad. The company referred CP to Google, and Google has not yet responded.

However, a GIPS official recently told CP that his company was working with at least one company with iPhone/iPad apps in development.

As for Google Voice, the company launched the application more than a year ago, and it has had limited appeal, mostly by design as an invitation-based service. It has continued to exist somewhere in the very long shadow of Skype, which not only has more than 450 million users globally, but also has made its way onto Verizon Wireless handsets. Still, Google recently has shown signs of broadening Google Voice availability. Just last week, the company announced via its Google Voice Blog that it would give the application to college students, or essentially anyone with an “.edu” e-mail address. GIPS’ media processing and codec capabilities give Google a set of tools that, unlike Skype and most voice carriers, it has not had in house to date.

The GIPS announcement also comes less than seven months after Google bought Gizmo5, a SIP client company whose talents broadened the utility of Google Voice and the Google Talk VoIP and IM application.