Google Voice sounds like the best thing to happen to telephony since the cellphone, but it does lack one important ingredient: a softphone client. That’s about to change as Google acquires Skype competitor Gizmo5.

The obvious synergies of this deal make a Hell of a lot more sense than eBay buying Skype four years ago — and will probably produce a ton less drama. Gizmo5 may not have Skype’s enormous userbase, but Google clearly bought the VoIP service for its technology and not its userbase. Once Gizmo5 is fully integrated into Google Voice, expect Mountain View to throw its marketing muscle behind the combo.

New signups for Gizmo5 have been suspended, but expect its VoIP features to make their way into Google Voice and Google Talk in a year or two.

Originally posted on November 15, 2009 @ 1:00 am