Not long ago, Eric Schmidt estimated that Google would start making monthly acquisitions. Today, it’s almost looking like the dial got bumped up to hourly, since following this morning’s confirmed acquisition of AdMob, a report has indicated that Google’s bought Gizmo5, too.
Gizmo5 is a VoIP firm. Two recent company blog posts are titled “Introducing GizmoVoice – A Free Phone Line Using Google & Gizmo5″ and “Add Gizmo5 Calling Directly To Gmail!” so it’s clear that there are some strong links between it and Google.
Two less obvious details also make them a good match, since the Gizmo5 homepage is dotted with the word “free” (as we all know, Google rarely charges for things) and the Gizmo5 site is available in nine languages (Google loves to serve lots of countries).
Anyway, Michael Arrington, who was the first to write about the rumored acquisition, predicted that Gizmo5 will fill a vital role. “Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product,” he stated. “And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor.”
Arrington put Gizmo5’s price at $30 million (in cash). Gizmo5’s site has since become quite slow, but we’ll keep an eye out for official confirmation.
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