Not content with controlling a majority of the market for online search and search-related advertising, Google has been rolling out add-ons to its online hegemony over the past year or so, including GTalk, Google Analytics and so on. And the most recent – not including the hideous and lame Google Page Creator – was the addition of a hosted email and domain service, which The Scobleizer got all upset about for some reason.
But there’s more. Garett Rogers, the ZDNet columnist who first spotted evidence of the hosted email solution — hidden inside the Javascript code that underlies Google’s Gmail webmail service — has found something else in the entrails of Google’s programming. It appears to be the precursor of a voicemail offering Google plans to roll out, which would make sense considering that voice-over-Internet calling is part of its GTalk service. What would make more sense than bundling instant messaging, voice calling and voice messaging into one web-based application?
So let’s think about that for a minute. Email, contact manager, voicemail, instant messaging all integrated into one app. What is it missing? If it were Microsoft’s Outlook, it would be missing a calendar, so you could schedule things with all your business or social contacts. So where’s the calendar, Google? It has been much rumoured in the past, and rumours have sprung to life again more recently.
Will Google do it? It seems like a natural fit in many ways, and it could be one of the last links in the chain – apart from the word processor and spreadsheet part, of course – creating a Google hosted-Office suite of some kind. One thing is for sure: many people seem to want them to do it. And the customer is always right.
Update:
Google also appears to be getting close to finally launching a Finance hub. And Google Page Creator has been having some teething problems.