Google gets VoIP upgrade, buys GIPS

Google and Global IP Solutions (GIPS) have announced that Google will be buying the real-time voice and video over IP processing tech company for $68.2 million based on the currently issued and outstanding share capital of GIPS.

Google plans to use GIPS' technology to expand its real time audio and video over IP offerings. With GIPS, they will up the ante on their VoIP plays and be in a position to upgrade their current voice and video offerings to level the playing field between their chat features and online VoIP providers like Skype. GIPS VoIP technology is used for Yahoo Messager voice calls, Cisco's WebEx offering and Lotus Sametime--offerings you'd be hard pressed to shrug at.

"The Web is evolving quickly as a development platform, and real-time video and audio communication over the Internet are becoming important new tools for users," said Rian Liebenberg, Engineering Director at Google in a release. "GIPS's technology provides high quality, real-time audio and video over an IP network, and we're looking forward to working with the GIPS team at Google to continue innovating for the Web platform."

Google has been making similar deals all week and is preparing us all for what looks like some major announcements at its Google I/O show next week.

For more:
- read this release
- read this PCMag article

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