Analysts are predicting that Google’s move into the IM and VOIP arena may shake the market. While analysts and vendors are generally upbeat about Google’s chances to win consumers and enterprise customers, the move may be a sign that the market is about to explode.

Several reviews on Google Talk have talked about it being “too thin” and without the features of the existing IM powerhouses, but the bulk of consumers have continually asked for an Instant Messenger client without all of the “bells and whistles”. After all, users have calendars in 15 other applications, and do you really need to be able to type an email or share family picture albums through your IM. Google Talk keeps it simple by providing all of the core requirements for IM and leaves open the possibility for a more full-featured version if the community really demands it and integration into other services/aplications.

Google Talk, unlike the messengers by America Online, Yahoo and Microsoft, is based on the XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), an open standard that is also used by Jabber. Jabber has been increasingly accepted by companies looking for a more secure IM offering and is supported by such Jabber-compliant clients as GAIM, Trillian Pro and iChat.

On the VOIP side of things, Google’s not only begins to target companies like Skype and Vonage but also supports the decision by Yahoo to add voice capabilities to its Yahoo Messenger service in May. To continue the open access view, Google said it will soon use the SIP (Session Initation Protocol) which will enable interoperability with several other VOIP services such Earthlinks’s Vling and the Gizmo Project by the SIPphone team. Google is also providing an open API, which was widely speculated would be included and may be one of the reasons Skype has opened their API.