What about Yahoo and Hotmail?

[dhilipkumar]

What about Yahoo and Hotmail?

Video chatting has long been available through the instant messaging services offered by Yahoo and Microsoft, but the feature isn't available in their free e-mail applications.

Interestingly, Google Talk, Google's desktop chat programme does not have any video functionality so far, though Google enabled voice chat for GoogleTalk long time back.

Last month, Yahoo announced it was providing programmers the software instructions they need to write applications that can extend the features of Yahoo mail. Ash Patel, executive vice president of the audience product division, said that the goal was to help hundreds of millions of users "communicate better and get more done."

Microsoft has also been upgrading its communication platform known as WindowsLive.

Other than eBay's Skype, video chat has also been the focus of a number of start-ups like Paltalk, Stickam and Camfrog.

Threatening Microsoft and IBM?

Adding voice and video chat for Gmail shows Google means business beyond YouTube when it comes to online video. In September, the company launched Google Video for businesses to help enterprises with corporate training and to serve as a new vehicle for company executives to communicate with employees. Google Video for businesses leverages the cloud computing infrastructure that the company employs for YouTube.

Though with these apps, Google is unlikely to challenge Microsoft SharePoint, Cisco WebEx Connect or IBM Lotus Sametime overnight, however, the features are sure to give Google an edge as a SAAS (software as a service) provider in the current trying financial times.

The addition of video also strengthens Google's lead over Microsoft in providing a fully Web-based package of productivity applications, one that goes beyond email, word-processing and spreadsheets. Microsoft too recently announced that it is developing a Web-based Google Apps competitor, dubbed Office 14; however, it is unlikely to be released before late 2009