More great news for OnState customers.  Google recently announced the general availability of its ground-breaking Google Voice service.  Previously available by invitation only, Google Voice is now available to all U.S. users - free of charge.  Offering rich call management features, free calling within the US and Canada, and low rates on international calls, Google Voice is sure to be a hit with consumers.  The service attracted over 1.4 million subscribers in the invitation-only release alone.

We think plenty of business customers can benefit from Google Voice as well.  Over the years we’ve helped businesses transform Google Apps and GoogleTalk into rich customer-facing communications platforms which increase worker productivity, cut costs and boost customer service.  We’re excited to help our business customers leverage Google Voice as well, and we’re delighted to support Google Voice as an integral component of our Virtual Call Center and Virtual PBX services.  With OnState and Google Voice any business can enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-class call center or PBX at a fraction of the price of a conventional on-premise solution.

OnState adds an intelligent business layer on top of Google’s popular “one number” feature.  Unlike a traditional phone system, OnState manages people, business functions and business rules – not just telephones.  We use business presence information – worker availability, skill-set, spoken language or any other business rules – to direct callers to the Google Voice number of the employee who can serve them best based on the nature of their query.

OnState business-presence lets you use Google Voice in a customer-facing context.  Callers contact your business using your published company phone numbers.  You don’t have to disclose the identity of your employees or their personal Google Voice numbers unless you choose to.  You’ll enhance sales and service and improve customer satisfaction by connecting callers to the right employee on the first attempt – reducing call transfers, telephone tag, missed calls, and overall customer frustration.

And business-presence is just the beginning.  You can use OnState for multi-modal customer-facing communications – text chat, video, screen sharing – to enhance customer experiences even further.  You can tie in Google Apps or other cloud services like Salesforce.com to increase productivity and improve customer service.  You can even leverage external application data and business logic to influence OnState call handling. And our extensive reporting and analytics will help you keep an eye on service levels and user activity so you can keep your operation running at peak efficiency.

The general availability of Google Voice is just the beginning for Google.  We see Google Voice as a platform for innovation and growth, and we'll be there every step of the way.  We were an early supporter of Google Talk and an original participant in the Google Apps Marketplace, and we'll be there as Google Voice evolves as well.  We look forward to continue helping companies find new and creative ways to extract additional business value from Google.