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Hours after announcing exceptional fiscal quarter results, Google has now announced the acquisition of Marratech, an online video conferencing company that is based in Sweden. According to Google

As a company, we thrive on casual interactions and spontaneous collaboration. So we’re excited about acquiring Marratech’s video conferencing software, which will enable from-the-desktop participation for Googlers in videoconference meetings wherever there’s an Internet connection.

However this does not seem to be the prime reason for buying Marratech. Video-conferencing was just a next logical move for Google, after its recent dive into online video with the acquisition of Youtube. Google has now raised the bar even further in its battle against Microsoft, which has its own web conferencing software, Live Meeting. Cisco also recently acquired WebEx, which is supposedly the market leader in this segment for $3.2 billion.

Google offcourse would have paid petty cash as compared to Cisco’s spendings. Marratech’s software is a desktop application and therefore is feature rich as compared to some web based counter parts. The windows version of the software is 31.4 MB where as the Mac version is 8.8 MB. The software could be downloaded from here. With ready access to thousands of PCs as a result of GTalk, Google Desktop and Toolbar applications, Google could easily distribute the software, perhaps even for free.

Marratech’s technology is based on research that began in 1995 at the Centre for Distance Spanning Technology, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. The company was formally incorporated in 1998 and received funding from Slottbacken Venture Capital, the investment unit of Telia Sonera, the Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund, Emano, Hagstromer, and Qviberg. Marratech has received a number of European technology awards and has significant presence in Europe.

Google which has also recently acquired Web Presentation Application to bundle with its Docs & Spreadsheets is making in roads into Microsoft territory faster than Microsoft’s Web efforts.