GrandCentral Shuts Down as Google Is Getting Ready to Take on Skype

Google is getting ready for a big push with a full voice communications service in the works, but in the mean time it has to do a little housekeeping. Google Voice, one of Google's hottest products on the mobile front at the moment, came to be after the company acquired GrandCentral, a startup offering pretty much what Voice is offering today. This was back in 2007 and now that Google Voice is getting ready for its big public debut, the GrandCentral website and service is living its final days.

Google sent an email to GrandCentral users, informing them that the service is shutting down and to move completely to Google Voice if they haven't done so already. “We’re writing to let you know that we will be closing down the GrandCentral website as of December 31, 2009,” the email read.

All GrandCentral accounts were upgraded to Google Voice earlier this year, but since that time, you’ve still been able to log-in to your GrandCentral account and listen to old messages there. You will no longer be able to log-in to your GrandCentral account after December 31. Because of this, we strongly suggest downloading any messages or contacts that you want to keep in the next 43 days,” Google also wrote.

This isn't much of a hassle for GrandCentral users, they have been able to switch to Google Voice since spring and the only thing they will be losing are their old messages stored on the site which they will have to download if they want to keep.

Google isn't saying anything just yet, but it does look like it’s getting ready for a full release of the service which is currently invite only. Google Voice, just like GrandCentral before it, offers users an easy way of having just one phone number which others can use to contact them regardless of where they are or what phone or carrier they are using at the time.

Google Voice should be coming any time now, but it looks like Google has even bigger plans in store as it recently acquired VoIP company Gizmo5. Google has been offering voice communication in Gtalk for a while now, but with Gizmo5 users will be able to make and receive phone calls to the external regular phone system. The belief is that Google may eventually integrate the three services, Voice, Talk, and the service acquired from Gizmo5 to offer a full voice communication service similar to Skype's.