Skype was talking to VoIP startup Gizmo5 last month. Gizmo5 was seemed as a perfect backup plan in case the Skype IP litigation didn’t work out. – Gizmo5′ has a SIP infrastructure that could theoretically replace Skype’s proprietary P2P back end.

But the Skype problem has been settled and the strategic value of Gizmo5 for Skype gone down.

Now, Google has bought Gizmo5 for around $30 million in cash. According to the sources close to the deal, it is done and will be announced shortly.

Why Google has takenGizmo5? Gizmo5 is a good fit with a number of Google products. Google Talk let users make voice calls between users but it has no PSTN link and so cannot offer incoming or outbound calls to real phones. Gizmo5 will do that for Google Talk.

Google Voice, even after being labeled as a great VoIP and phone identity service, lacks the endpoint for calls. Gizmo5 is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. This means, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.

Gizmo5 can act as a binder to bind Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product, which may become a Skype competitor.

Gizmo5, which was founded in April 2003, has raised $6 million to date, plus an unspecified amount from founder/CEO Michael Robertson.

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