The company did not say when the free service will be generally available.

Google Wave, which has been in development for about two years, promises to give users a single platform for accessing e-mail, instant messaging, blog, wiki, multimedia management and document-sharing tools. Google also hasn't said when will be widely available.

Though the Google offerings appear to be aimed primarily at consumers, they could quickly become attractive to small businesses, and eventually to large companies, if the products can overcome the privacy concerns raised by storing phone messages and other confidential data on third-party systems, analysts said.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc., said it could take some time for Google's product features to match those of Cisco, Microsoft and voice-switching vendors like Avaya Inc. or Siemens AG. But he predicted that over the "long term, Google will have a significant role" in the business.

"Google has the mind share and capital resources to be as big a threat as it desires to be," he added.