Google Inc has acquired GrandCentral Communications, a start-up that lets users manage their existing phones and voice mailboxes over the Web as if they were a single account, the company said on Monday.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Grand Central of Fremont, California is one of dozens of innovative companies that are taking advantage of Web-based software to allow consumers and businesses to make voice calls over the Internet while also working with regular phones.

GrandCentral was founded in late 2005 by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, who worked together while running Web-calling pioneer Dialpad Communications. Google's biggest rival, Yahoo Inc, acquired Dialpad in June 2005.

"You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life," Walker and Paquet said in a statement on GrandCentral's Web site confirming the deal.

EBay Inc unit Skype, a pioneer in the Internet phone market, has signed up more than 200 million users for its free or low-cost phone services globally. Newer names in the field include venture-backed firms Jajah, Jangl, Jaxtr and Rebtel, which together have signed up millions of users in just the past year.

The idea for GrandCentral was borne out of Walker's frustration upon landing at a local airport and realizing he needed to check three voicemail mail boxes--one for his cell phone, another for work and one for his Blackberry phone.

"If you have multiple phone numbers (eg., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones," Wesley Chan, a Google product manager, said in a blog post on his company's Web site.

"This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job," he said.

Rather than competing directly with the likes of Vodafone Plc or China Telecom Corp Ltd, many of these newer Web-based calling services are focused on incorporating phone-like talk features into Internet services on blogs or social network sites like MySpace or Facebook.

Konstantin Guericke, the co-founder of Silicon Valley-based business networking site LinkedIn took over as the chief executive of Web-calling service Jangl late last year.

"The way I see it, social networks and blogs are about communication and the phone hasn't been really in the mix," Guericke said following news of Google's acquisition.

GrandCentral has been holding public tests of its service for several months. Current GrandCentral customers will continue to have uninterrupted service, Google said.

However, one feature that allowed users to upload their own audio tracks to create ringtones now will be limited to licensed music, GrandCentral said on its own site.

A limited number of invitations to receive GrandCentral unified numbers will be available for users who sign up at http://www.grandcentral.com, it said.

"We think GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users," Chan said. Google did not disclose future products plans it has in the area.

But voice-calling features will quickly be built into many popular Web sites over the next three months to a year, Guericke said. "We think there is a billion-dollar business to be built, so we have no plans to get acquired any time soon."

In the last five weeks, Jangl has seen the number of registered users of its service on sites like Facebook grow to 300,000 users from 100,000 on May 25, he said.

COurtesy : Expressindia.com

Corporate India's acquisition spree has propelled the country ahead of China in terms of raising syndicated loans as companies have mopped up more than 8 billion dollars so far this year to fund expansion projects.

According to data complied by global consulting firm Dealogic, loans gathered by BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) rose 104 per cent to 78.9 billion dollar so far this year from 38.7 billion dollar in the corresponding period of 2006.

Indian companies account for 10.5 per cent of the total syndicated loans by BRIC nations, with borrowings of about 8.28 billion dollars in 2007 so far. This is higher than China's 7.9 per cent or over 6 billion dollar, Dealogic said.

"Russia is the most active BRIC nation with a 67.9 per cent market share, followed by Brazil at 13.6 per cent, India at 10.5 per cent and China at 7.9 per cent," the report said.

Dealogic said proceeds of the loans have been mainly used for acquisition purposes. "Around 47 per cent of the proceeds of the BRIC nations syndicated loans was utilised for acquisition purposes," it said.

A whopping 36.7 billion dollar was utilised for seven acquisition deals in 2007, quite a jump from 2.3 billion dollar for six deals in 2006.

Oil and gas was the top industry group, raising 39 billion dollar through 11 deals in 2007. This represented an increase of 186 per cent compared to corresponding period in 2006 at 13.6 billion dollar for 14 deals.

Global financial services major BNP Paribas topped the chart of bookrunners with a volume of 5.4 billion dollar, amounting to 6.9 per cent market share.

Syndicated loan refers to a large sum of funds provided by a group of banks collectively to a borrower. There is usually one lead bank that takes a percentage of the loan and syndicates the rest to other banks.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com