Google Confirms Acquisition Of GrandCentral

Google has confirmed that it has acquired GrandCentral, a phone management startup. GrandCentral lets you give out a single phone number and have it do different things, like forward to home, work or cell, or voicemail, depending on who is calling and what you are doing at the time. The service could be used for Google Talk, using the call-forwarding infrastructure to build a VoiP client that bridges IM and regular phones, but beyond that, the purpose of the acquisition is unclear.
TechCrunch says the acquisition should be around $50 million, and that VCs funded the company to the tune of less than $6 million.
John Battelle points out that GrandCentral just shut down their option that allowed users to upload MP3s as ringtones. Apparently, Google was afraid of legal problems.

Original post by Nathan Weinberg