• Reuters, Tuesday, July 3, 2007 10:45 AM

Google on Tuesday made yet another acquisition, adding GrandCentral Communications to its growing empire of Web services. GrandCentral makes a VoIP technology that lets users manage their various phone numbers and mailboxes from a single account. The idea is to make your phone number tied to you rather than a given location. Add that to BlackBerry functionality and it would give cell phone users a truly single point of access. Of course that would require that cell phones operate on a wireless Web, technology which is still several years away.

Grand Central of Fremont, California is one of several Web startups that sync VoIP technology with regular phones for consumers and businesses. You can see this being useful to Google Checkout merchants in particular. Indeed, this move could be about Google Checkout vs. eBay and Skype.

Here's how it works, company founders Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet said: "You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life." Users can also set their phone numbers to ring on all, one or none of their devices. Reuters says Walker came up with the idea upon landing at an airport and realizing he had to check three mail boxes: his cell, business and BlackBerry voicemails.

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