Google Phone

Despite many suggestions that Google’s FCC bid talk was more of a ploy to secure open-access clauses in the 700MHz spectrum contract, the Wall Street Journal is convinced that the search company will push ahead and declare an intention-to-bid by the December 3rd deadline.  Quoting “several people familiar with the matter” the paper suggests Google fears a loss of goodwill in Washington should it pull out of the running, and this - together with the confirmation that building the financial backing would be eminently possible thanks to Wall Street support - has led them to plan to bid on their own, without the expected partners.

“The complexity of the possible bidding scenarios and auction outcomes has led Google executives to believe they would benefit from the flexibility of bidding alone. They were also concerned about alienating allies by selecting some and not others as bid partners” WSJ

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Less than a week after the WSJ broke the news that Google would be announcing their Linux-based gPhone OS and accompanying software suite within a fortnight, Monday 5th November is pegged as the day that the search giant will open up what have been notoriously-tight lips regarding the expansion of their business model within the cellular industry.  So far, while handsets will be conspicuous by their absence, the launch is believed to comprise details of the partnerships made with hardware manufacturers and international network operators all willing to fall into line with Google’s “open access” strategy regarding third-party software and handset flexibility.

Rumor also abounds that the core and ethos of this project will be based on Andy Rubin’s Android platform; Rubin, profiled today in the New York Times, was the genius co-founder of Danger and piloted their Sidekick range, and saw his latest project Android picked up by Google in 2005.  It has long been suggested that, thanks to his familiarity with data-centric mobile services, they’ve had him working on the increasingly complex balance of cellular search and targeted advertising needed to support a gPhone OS.

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With more and more mainstream news sources getting turned on to the upcoming gPhone, the usual flurry of “is this the first Google cellphone?!” stories begins in earnest.  First up is The India Street who are pushing Chinese company E28 Limited’s latest smartphone, a moderate BenQ P51 lookalike, as a likely candidate for Google’s OS and software suite.  According to an industry source, the manufacturer - who has a history of producing Linux-powered open-source handsets - has several choice phrases in their roadmap which might indicate interest from the search company.

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Scant seconds after the rumor breaks that Google will be announcing their gPhone OS and application suite within two weeks, comes the suggestion that talks with mobile operators in the US are in far more advanced stages than previously believed.  Key, indeed, is the revelation - as usual, by “people familiar with the matter” - that both Verizon and Sprint are close to formulating a deal with Google for gPhone-powered handsets to utilise their networks.

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Someone, somewhere, just wound up a big spring in Google: if the Wall Street Journal are to be believed then within the next two weeks we’ll be hearing an announcement about a Google-developed suite of software and services which manufacturers can use to release Google Phones.  While spokespeople from the search giant declined to comment, sources close to them revealed that deals are likely to include LG and HTC, while involved carriers mentioned were T-Mobile USA, France’s Orange and the UK’s 3 network. 

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With Google’s acquisition of Jaiku, a Finnish company which owns a number of patents related to SMS text messaging, analysts are clamouring to add this latest string to their vision of how an eventual gPhone and accompanying service may look.  There might be something about the relative low-tech of plain old SMS, however, that’s prompted some uninspiring ideas - compared to the network toting, OS creating behemoth we’re used to hearing suggested, Indystar’s report manages to make Google look like just another information portal.

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That Google and HTC have been in bed with each otherover the development of pre-production gPhone handsets is nothing new; what does come as a surprise is that, according to analysts at UBS, the manufacturer will ship an estimated 50,000 handsets using their own hardware design and Google’s new cellphone OS by the end of the year.  Intended for developers, who will undoubtedly be keen to figure out how to best code for what’s believed to be a Linux-based environment, it does herald the availability of a production version that should appear in stores sometime 2008.

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Just as happened with the iPhone, the prophesied Google cellphone is causing pre-emptive waves across newsrooms and blogs as various agencies sift through the scant evidence and clamour to have their say.  Today it’s the turn of the New York Times, who are keen to differentiate between the “revolutionary” and “customer experience redefining” iPhone and Google’s potential next-step into the mobile marketplace.

No longer is this step a rumour; it’s become a matter of when and not if.  NYT’s Miguel Helft is quick to label the search giant’s intent: using mobile ads to broaden their market share.  If anything, Helft makes it sound like, where Apple planned a revolution in the cellphone industry, Google aren’t particularly bothered what industry they’re entering, just as long as it caters to their role as advert and search provider.

“Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile Internet, a small market today, but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile phone makers to offer phones based on its software” Miguel Helft, NYT

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Well according to Business Week they have had two independent sources contact them saying that is the case. I love the idea of anyone except the traditional telcos getting their hands on this spectrum. Much like Google, I highly doubt Apple would stay with the traditional business model for companies that own spectrum.

In fact I would be willing to wager that even Google would be happy with Apple getting the spectrum, as long as it wasn’t another wireless service provider to come along and lock down the spectrum and restrict its use. This biggest, and this is a big one, difference between Google and Apple, is that Apple already has lots of experience with the mobile market as they have already gone through the whole handset design, release, and upkeep process which means they are already familiar with that end of things whereas Google’s only experience in the mobile market is with its apps that are constantly being added to handsets.
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Adding grist to the Google Phone mill comes The Boston Globe, with sneaky news from people who’ve touched - that’s right, kids, touched - Google’s cellphone prototype.  While NDAs have, as ever, scythed out the fun stuff, Om Malik has been digging around and found the following:

• Google currently has between three and five prototypes, mostly reworked HTC handsets (as reported here) with full QWERTY keyboards, and rumours continue that Google has been co-partnering with HTC and carrier Orange in developing the design.  The handset the NDA folks have seen is similar,. apparently, to the T-Mobile Dash
• The underlying core of the gPhone is Linux (no surprise there), and it’s capable of running one or more Java Virtual Machines
• Each application on the cellphone is an individual Java app; the OS is also capable of natively running multimedia clips including video files
• Users shouldn’t expect an outlandish or ground-breaking interface, as the UI is very similar to that in existing cellphones (and the red Google Switch concept is definitely not what should be expected).  The interface as a whole is coded in Java, very responsive and has a prominent ‘Search’ box.
• The web browser has been specially written in Java for the handset and is similar in concept to that running on the iPhone and on Symbian phones, in that it relies on panning, scrolling and zooming.

[via BGR]