Five well-known, but less-obvious, VoIP companies to watch

GOOG … IBM … MSFT … ORCL … EBAY: these could be among the symbols floating on your day-trading dashboard. But Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and eBay are also among the most influential companies in the VoIP market. Here’s a rundown on what these technology giants are doing with VoIP:

Google

IT administrators are already dealing with the trend of employees forwarding corporate e-mail accounts to services such as Google’s Gmail. (A New York Times story reports that BEA Systems estimates 30% of its employees forward corporate e-mail to Gmail, and other personal accounts). If employees are not satisfied with the e-mail services provided by an employer, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that users will also seek out voice services such as Google’s GoogleTalk in order to gain more mobility and flexibility for voice service. Google is also seeking its way into more mobile devices, which enterprise users could adopt over a company cell phone or landline. A Google Talk client for BlackBerrys is available, and the Google VoIP/chat client is also available for the Nokia 770 handheld device. Google’s relationship with VoIP service provider VoIP Inc. is another intriguing development, as VoIP Inc. provides services that can connect Google Talk clients to public telephone exchanges, 800 numbers and 911 services.

IBM

While not competing directly among VoIP vendors, IBM’s presence in the market still looms large. The company’s services arm is among the top installers and support companies behind large-scale IP telephony rollouts, with VoIP products from Avaya and Cisco. And last fall, IBM began an exclusive partnership with 3Com to resell its VCX VoIP platform on IBM’s Series i line of servers (formerly known as the iSeries, and the AS/400). This is among the most tightly coupled software/hardware offerings between a VoIP vendor and server maker in the industry, observers say. IBM also plays in other voice and speech technology areas, such as voice recognition, as well as call center management and disaster recovery.

Microsoft

Few IT vendors outside the core VoIP market have moved as aggressively towards the technology as Microsoft. The company’s Live Communication Server is an integral part of several IP PBX vendor’s advanced presence and collaboration suites (such as Cisco and Siemens). The company’s upcoming Office Communicator Server (OCS) itself can act as a stand-alone IP PBX in most cases, with support for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) on the server side, as well as the Office Communicator client, which melds VoIP, instant messaging, presence and video. But Microsoft’s strongest move into VoIP is its partnership with Nortel, in which the software and telecom companies are co-developing VoIP/messaging products, with shared intellectual property, R&D, sales and marketing resources.

Oracle

With all its software buyouts, it’s hard to keep track of exactly what Oracle is doing these days. But the software giant’s purchase of HotSIP last spring raised some antennas in the VoIP market. In September 2006, Oracle began offering a hosted IP PBX service, based on HotSIP’s SIP-based VoIP and presence infrastructure technology. The Oracle Virtual PBX is now part of the Oracle Service Delivery Platform, which includes other hosted software-as-a-service offerings such as middleware and business process applications. Oracle Virtual PBX puts the database company in direct competition with VoIP services behemoths such as AT&T and Vonage. Observers say the Oracle offering is also an example of how much VoIP is becoming just another IP corporate application.