14 DAY TRIAL // The Mountain View company is currently in talks for the acquisition of GrandCentral, a firm that introduced a revolutionary mobile system that caught everyone's attention. The deal was not confirmed, but the folks from TechCrunch sustain that the acquisition might be already closed as the two companies agreed on the price. GrandCentral launched the first beta of its services in September, becoming an important firm among the mobile companies. But what does GrandCentral offer and how can it help Google?
GrandCentral is the first company that managed to introduce a system able to offer a single phone number for multiple mobile devices. Basically, no matter how many phones you have, you can be contacted on any of them using a single number provided by the company. Also, there are signs that GrandCentral is currently working to develop a central SMS mailbox to gather the messages sent to any of the handhelds owned by a central person.
I really don't know how can GrandCentral help Google but, if the newly-acquired firm can do something, it is probably bringing new features for the instant messaging client Google Talk or maybe even Gmail, the famous mail solution.
Some time ago, the Google employees said that Google Talk is going to become a real VoIP client but, since the statements were made public, there was no major step to reach this goal. Using GrandCentral, Google might implement the long awaited function and make Google Talk a powerful rival for the famous instant messaging clients on the Internet.
"Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we've learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price. Just last week I flagged this company as the most exciting startup we're currently tracking," TechCrunch reported today.