Marratech will, however, continue to support its customers and resellers following the acquisition, it was disclosed on Thursday. Google said Marratech's engineers will remain in Sweden and continue to develop the desktop conferencing software. Marratech is being used by companies across the world and has won several industry awards and accolades including the 2001 European IST Prize, awarded by the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering (Euro-CASE) with support from the EU's Information Society Technologies Programme.
The cross-platform conferencing software allows people to interact using video, audio and instant messenger, and also lets users share applications. The client software runs on Windows 2000 or XP, Mac OS X 10.4, or versions of Linux including Mandriva 10.2, SuSE 9.1 or Fedora Core 2; it requires a Pentium III or G4 processor running at 1GHz or faster.
Presently, existing conferencing services available online typically charge users per minute of the conference. According to Marratech, it is cheaper for companies to buy their server based conferencing software than to opt for the temporary online option.
For Google, the acquisition is just the latest in a series of moves taking it into the sphere of collaborative working. It already offers communication tools, including the GoogleTalk messaging and VOIP (voice over IP) application, as well as a white-label version of its e-mail and calendaring tools for small businesses.
Online blogs and forums have been discussing the acquisition with much speculation about other Google software collaborative products, which we may soon see integrated into the conferencing platform.
Google Talk
Google Talk for example is a messaging and VOIP (voice over IP) application which may be integrated into their new video conferencing software. In the past Google have lost out in the field of online communication programs to fierce competitors, including Skype, Microsoft and Yahoo!. This new move may be Google's attempt to bring its VOIP services to the forefront.
Google Apps
The recently upgraded Google Apps hosted suite was set to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Office. Is there potential for video conferencing integration here? A 'virtual office' from Google would certainly offer a more complete and compelling system for the corporate world. What's more, Google Docs could also play a part in Google's collaborative plans.
