Gingerbread, the nickname for Android 2.3, is the first new version of the mobile operating system to hit the market since the 2.2 versions (a.k.a., "Froyo") was released this past spring.  But whereas Froyo was focused squarely on updating Android's enterprise features, Gingerbread's key features revolve around adding new forms of communications to Android devices.

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The first big new communications feature is SIP-based VoIP calling that lets users make calls to other SIP users over the Web.  Google says that users must sign up for their own SIP accounts with their service providers, as SIP accounts "are not provided as part of the Internet calling feature."  But presuming the carrier and the device will support SIP calling, users can add SIP addresses to their contact lists and can initiate quick calls just as they do with regular cell phone numbers.

The other big new communication feature is a Near-Field Communications (NFC) Reader that can read and interact with nearby NFC tags.  NFC is particularly important because it's the key technology that will be used to transform smartphones into credit cards in the near future.   and they have announced that they've joined forces to build a mobile commercial payment network that will use NFC to send encrypted data from smartphones to payment processors.

In addition to the big communications features, other key additions to the Gingerbread platform include: