Google Inc. added a voice and video chat feature to Gmail today. The capability allows people who use the free e-mail service to click on a contact's name and talk face-to-face with the contact in a videoconference -- as long as both the user and his contact have computers equipped with webcameras and microphones.
Businesses that have bought an enterprise version of Gmail, found within the Google Apps software package, will also receive the feature at no extra charge.
Google believes that the voice and video features will benefit from the fact that webconferencing has become easier in recent years, thanks to the proliferation of Web-based applications and cameras that have been built into computers as standard features.
"It opens up opportunities that weren't there before," says Rajen Sheth, the senior product manager at Google Enterprise, which oversees Google Apps. "And just from a Web browser, you can initiate this functionality."
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