Microsoft (MSFT) kicked the rumor mill into high gear in August when it acquired San Francisco-based startup Teleo, a provider of PC-to-PC phone calling. Was Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates plotting a foray into the booming market for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)? Would the software giant be going toe-to-toe with such VoIP providers as Vonage and Verizon Communications (VZ)? Advertisement
More like Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO). Far from aiming to displace your mother’s phone company, Microsoft wants to harness Teleo’s PC-to-phone calling capabilities in a bid to kick-start growth at its MSN Web business.
Microsoft has yet to make public its plans for Teleo, but BusinessWeek Online has learned that the software maker plans to weave Teleo’s bells and whistles into a number of applications, such as Hotmail and instant messaging. Microsoft also hopes to integrate VoIP into its new paid-search platform, which is being rolled out worldwide, as well as a planned classified-ad service