Craig Walker is the creator of Google Voice (formerly known as GrandCentral Communications) and knows a thing or two about VOIP communications. Now Walker is running a new company called Switch Communication and is looking to provide Google Apps Business customers with a VOIP solution for businesses. Google already offers a myriad of business tools with email, cloud storage and office suite tools but doesn’t offer a business level VOIP solution.
“Google Apps has a growing customer base without a phone system to add to their suite of productivity tools,” Walker said. “Switch.co integrates seamlessly with Google Apps to complete the package.”
Walker worked at Google for three years heading up Google Voice after Google’s purchase of GrandCentral Communications. Walker’s new venture also brings along former Google employees Brian Peterson, John Rector and Jeanne DeWitt. Together they are building their VOIP service named Switch.co to fill the gap Google has yet to fill.
“Google’s problem is that it has no answer to the business phone question. Companies want to buy everything at once and Switch fills the gap,” DeWitt said.
Switch.co’s model could potentially save large business a good amount of money by using a VOIP solution targeted for business. The Weather Channel is Switch.co’s first test subject for their product, currently TWC runs a traditional phone system run by Cisco Systems.
The Cisco service requires the Weather Channel to buy and maintain its own rack of computer servers and related software, which needs to be replaced about every three years. Replacing it with Switch.co would avoid this, potentially cutting the cost of the company’s phone system by up to 70%, Gardner said.
Walker took his startup to a point where it was noticed by Google and bought out – now he’s aiming to be successful at integrating a business VOIP service with Google’s Apps for business. Perhaps Google will let him do the leg work and scoop him up once it’s established.
[button link=”http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/01/ex-googlers-try-to-plug-a-gap-in-googles-business-suite/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: The Wall Street Journal[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
