After months of speculation, Google finally announced yesterday its plans for breaking into the mobile phone market.
The trend-setting Silicon Valley company is not, as some had predicted, planning to release a mobile phone handset of its own. Instead, "Google and a consortium of 33 companies, including mobile- handset makers, phone carriers and other technology leaders, plan to offer free software to power mobile phones," writes Jessica Guynn in today's L.A. Times.
"Through the Open Handset Alliance, Google wants to force the industry to give phone users better Web access."
It's a clever and interesting idea: bringing an increased power of Internet access to standard cell phones and becoming a stronger force in more remote worldwide markets where phone ownership is higher than PC ownership — all while ramping up its ad revenue.
However, a real difficulty may lie in squeezing itself into the relationship between mobile phone providers and their customers.
Mobile providers have a long-standing hold on what customers can do with their cellphones, dictating which handsets work on their networks and which programs can be run on them.
The two largest wireless carriers in the United States -- AT&T Corp. and Verizon Wireless -- have not yet signed on. One complication is Google's interest in bidding for wireless spectrum, which could make Google a direct competitor. Other concerns relate to potential security risks such as viruses and spam, analysts said.
Even carriers that have signed on may move slowly to see whether the initiative drives customers and revenue.
The marketplace already is crowded with mobile software platforms from companies that have been working with independent developers for years.
However, none of those companies are Google. These caveats notwithstanding, there’s still plenty of incentive for Google to move into mobile phone technology.
Since Apple Inc. whetted the appetite for an Internet-friendly phone with its iPhone this summer, frustration has grown with slow and cumbersome Web browsing. And speculation about a Google phone -- dubbed the GPhone by the blogosphere -- has soared.
Google would not say whether it plans at some point to build its own branded phone. Instead Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said he wanted thousands of different phones to use the free software.
"We want to create a whole new mobile experience for users," Schmidt said. "Mobile users want the same applications on the phone as they use on the Internet."
Will it work? Time will tell, apparently: According to the article, "it could be years before the industry embraces Google's wireless push and consumers reap any substantial benefits, Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said."
Others are more positive:
Making it easier and cheaper to create software will improve the Internet experience for mobile phone users, said Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of new business at T-Mobile. Those improvements will expand revenue for every company in the mobile market, said Paul Jacobs, CEO of San Diego-based mobile chip maker Qualcomm Inc.
If that happened, Android would experience a "snowball effect," Golvin said.
Check out the complete article here: "Google hopes to conquer the wireless world" by Jessica Guynn.
