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from The Wall Street Journal
Ring-Ring…Google to Announce Phone Plans Monday
Posted by Ben Worthen
Amol Sharma reports on Google:
We won’t have to wait much longer to hear from Google about its bigplans in wireless. The company looks set to make a splash in the mobilemarket on Monday, announcing an alliance with various handset makersand cellphone operators around the world that are willing to push its“open” platform for cellphone applications, sources say. It’s alwayspossible the announcement’s timing could change, but Monday looks likethe day at this point.
TheU.S. carriers likely to be part of the announcement are T-Mobile andSprint, according to our sources, but there could be others by the timeGoogle says its piece. While Sprint appears to be agreeing to work withGoogle to put the Web giant’s new Linux-based open operating systeminto phones, T-Mobile will probably go even further: the company hasworked with Google for months on plans to build Google-powered phoneswith a variety of Google software and applications. As far as handsetpartners for Google, Taiwan’s HTC is a likely bet, our sources say.Samsung, LG, and SonyEricsson are also possible, but we’ll wait and seethe full roster. Equally interesting will be who isn’t on the list.
Don’t expect to see any devices soon – the middle of next year is the earliest Google-powered phones could come to market.
What will the impact be? Well, Google is trying to remake cellphonesin the model of the Web, making them as open as possible to newapplications in areas like social networking and map-based services.It’s too early to tell whether this will be a revolution in cellphones– or just an evolution that improves on the relatively open platformsalready out there, like rival Microsoft’s Windows mobile. If thepartnerships result in Google-branded devices hitting the market, we’llget a chance to see how much pull the Google name really has in thewireless market. We’ve already seen the pull Apple has.
Our guess: It’s one more piece of tech that people will want tobring into the workplace and that corporate-tech departments won’t knowhow to respond to.
Comments
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Agreed… corp IT departments won’t want to touch it, while individual earlyadopters will thumb their noses at that and buy (and use) the phonesanyway.
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However, I already have Google apps and/or bookmarks on my Nokia, andI’ll say this: Google has gone SO MUCH farther than MSFT … for example,Google’s GMAIL application is customized specifically for my Nokiadevice. It is beautifully designed and has a nearly flawless interfaceand functionality. And it syncs in “real-time” with my web-based Gmailaccount, as well as with Google Calendar too (which unfortunately Istill have to bookmark — there’s no mobile application that isdownloadable at this time, but that’s probably a logical next step).
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Does MSFT offer this kind of simple and elegant platform & customer-focused thinking? Does Yahoo? No.
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Google is already ahead and is widening the lead … this game may be over before the 2nd inning.
Comment by BB-November 1, 2007 at 8:54 pm
How would it affect Apples’ IPhone business?
Comment by James-November 1, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I do love my unlocked iPhone…
Comment by Jason-November 1, 2007 at 10:25 pm
the world will be dominated by two innovated revolutionary companies ….
google and aaple…….thier paths will meet…and brother what a fight that will be….or one combined company?
Can anyone say Goopple?
Comment by Anonymous-November 1, 2007 at 10:38 pm
We already have Goopple, it’s called Microsoft Research -Cambridge.
Comment by Bob Brickle-November 1, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Idon’t care about Google, so why do I care about Google phone? It willbe a phone that will make you listen to Google audio ads before youeven can make a phone call. Another one of the dumb ideas from Google.
Comment by John Wu-November 1, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Weneed google to shake things up . I like my I phone and I have been abig fan of Apple from the beginning I could do with out ATT mediocreservice and disgusting policies and customer service. I dont like whatI see Apple doing with its restrictive policies ( with ATT) and withits less friendly tratment of Iphone customers. Verizon on the otherhand has good coverage and the similar low life policies promulgated bythe other mobile carriers. I look forward to google shaking things upin every way they can. Google will give all these laggards a run fortheir money and hopefully the consumer will get some respect.
Comment by Marshall Sohne-November 2, 2007 at 6:45 am
TheGoogle owners sit on Apple’s board, so whatever they do, they will mostlikely work together with the Iphone, not against it.
Comment by Google and Apple are together-November 2, 2007 at 8:24 am
Bring it on Google! I’d love to have more of your apps on my Sprint phone.
Comment by Raymond-November 2, 2007 at 9:49 am
Let’s take a step back and see what happened to the wireline world.
The Internet companies like Yahoo and Google rode over the networkinvestments of the likes of AT&T and Verizon to provide access totheir service. The big telcos did not see this coming and the Internetcompanies with minimal investment monetized the technology the best.
Now the same story may repeat on the Mobile Internet. The initialdrawback of the mobile internet was the speed and that has been takencare of with advancement in technology. But the mobile internet iscontrolled by the service providers who from past experience of thewireline experience will not give in without negotiating something forthemselves. This will be true for the likes of AT&T and Verizon.However, given the state of business at Sprint and T-mobile - theseoperators may be more willing as they could ride the Google marketingwave, acquire customers and benefit. This in turn would put pressure onAT&T and Verizon. So not sure how this would play out – maybeAT&T and Verizon would partner with Microsoft.
If Internet companies and the operators figure out how to share theloot which would be fair based on the investments each makes, thenGoogle powered phones will be a hit. The key word is ‘Fair’ but thenwho says one needs to fair to be successful in business.
Comment by Himanshu Sahu-November 2, 2007 at 10:35 am
Jerry Seinfeld is a bad man!
Comment by Babu Bhatt-November 2, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Noteven sure what Google is proposing here…Get free Google mail and mapsetc on your cell phone? Who pays to provide services? Advertisers… Ifso, what does google do, play an add everytime I try to make a call..Yeah that will go over really good…LOL, there is no place in this spacefor google, they should just stick to what they know. If I were callingthe shots at the big wireless carriers, I would dare google to buyspectrum and try to implement its plan. I hope Verizon dosent fall forthis sh**….
Comment by SL-November 2, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Whyin the world is everyone adding to the general hype surrounding Google?The GPhone? Wait till Google gets a load of how darn difficult thehandset world is. On the other hand, Nokia is making HUGE moves, andwith 39% of the handset market and growing, this is a force to bereckoned with. Once its transformation into a Software and ServicesCompany is more tangible (Mid Q1 08) - look out, the train’s a’comin…
Comment by Jack Perry-November 2, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Google Phone stock plan.
Google is already over-priced. Figure out who they will source theirproducts through and see how many of those companies are publiclytraded. That’s where the money will be made on this announcement andproduct release. Andy Kessler style.
- Richard
http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com
Comment by Richard Wilson-November 2, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Googlemakes good products — most of them appear on the surface as freegiveaways. I should know, I used to work for them. But underneath allof them, luring around all of their hoopla — is the specter ofmonetization. Google is the king of making money through acquiring FREEuser data — YOUR PERSONAL DATA, free books, free web pages, etc. —scanning them for stuff to sell keywords through their AdWords andAdsense programs. For those of you who use Gmail — did you know thatGoogle scans your emails for keywords, did you know that Google savescopies of every email you receive and every email you send on Google’sservers forever? Talk about invasion of privacy? Have any skeletons inyour personal closet, don’t Google’s products — GoogleDocs, etc. — forall of your data is being stored forever to be mined . I quit Googleafter I realized how evil they were. But the saddest thing aboutGoogle’s evil is that NOBODY SEES THE EVIL THAT GOOGLE IS DOING,because Google is covering that evil with “altruistic” overtures suchas making free apps, making free cell phone apps, etc. Microsoft may beevil for their monopolistic practices but at least they don’t violateprivacy to the extent that Google does — DO NO EVIL INDEED!
Comment by Evil data miners and privacy violators at Google.-November 2, 2007 at 3:26 pm
The mobile Java Gmail app bricked my Samsung phone. 
Before offering me to “Get faster Gmail” in a hyperlink in my mobilebrowser, they should have checked my phone’s user agent profile andrealized that they hadn’t done enough validation of Java Mobile Gmailon that device.
Go look in the gmail-help-mobile-group
Comment by Mobile Gmail was not QAd enough-November 2, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Oneaspect of the gphone platform that hasn’t been much discussed is thatit will (*) include a digital payment module: this plays in the creditcard field too.
(*)Educated guess: the payment system is already in place through your phone bill.
Comment by Andre Tchen-November 2, 2007 at 7:42 pm
No ads before dialing.
It’s been surmised before that the Google phone will be big onlocation-based services… GPS driven searches with local businessespaying for ads or placement.
Comment by Watcher-November 2, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Google will tap Mobilepro’s wifi technology in a big way.
Comment by Rumor Mongerer-November 2, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I’m sure that it’s gonna be a good fight with iPhone.
GPhone
Comment by dudu tomaselli-November 2, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Thepotential of the iPhone is unbelievable and the with third party appsand accesories like a wireless keyboard, it will only get better. IfGoogle comes close to iPhone, the two will eventually be the same thingand Apple will win with hardware quality and design just as it does nowagainst better carriers than ATT with alternative hardware. I love myiPhone and tossed aside a perfectly useable treo to buy it.
Comment by iphone is only limited by carrier and speed-November 3, 2007 at 2:31 am
Ifthey have GPS, they should include Google Earth. They may need to makea cartoon layer to simplify neighborhood views for browsing businesses.
Comment by Memosphere.wordpress.com-November 3, 2007 at 9:16 am
“Thepotential of the iPhone is unbelievable and the with third party appsand accesories like a wireless keyboard, it will only get better. IfGoogle comes close to iPhone, the two will eventually be the same thingand Apple will win with hardware quality and design just as it does nowagainst better carriers than ATT with alternative hardware. I love myiPhone and tossed aside a perfectly useable treo to buy it.”
The iPhone is limited in so many ways, in order to use it you mustuse itunes. You can’t run windows apps as the new update stops thewindows plugin from working, it has a very low resolution camera, novideo camera, bad zoom, bad keyboard (horrible for texting)
Comment by Ryan-November 3, 2007 at 10:01 am
ryan,sounds like you don’t have one. i love the keyboard. and i have a realcamera. i’ve yet to see any camera on any telephone device that isactually quality.
a gphone “must use google”. so that’s just as restrictive imho.
“must use itunes” - don’t really see how this is any different than90% of smart phones on the martket “must connect to a pc” at least forsetup, sync etc, and by pc that’s windows and outlook. at least itunesis *free* on whatever platform you have.
Comment by sax-November 3, 2007 at 10:48 am
youknow i read through all these posts, and many of you make it sound likethe “gphone” is going to be free… hate to tell you its not….. the OS isfree it Linux, the phone is going to cost and the service is going tocost, and if you know anything about Linux, you can change to code if“something” is there that might give away information….. you just haveto have the smarts to made the mods to do so and if you don’t, someone,somewhere will post what you want to do so it can be done….. via LINUX,and this from a winblows user
Comment by Good Goodess your crazed-November 3, 2007 at 12:25 pm
“i’ve yet to see any camera on any telephone device that is actually quality.”
Really? My Sony K800i from years ago has a fantastic 3.2 mp camera onit(Cybershot). I like the iphone too but man you apple fans are onanother level of denial.
Having more competition in this space is usually good for the consumerso I welcome Google’s efforts as long as they don’t save all my info asEvil data miners and privacy violators at Google brought to myattention.
Comment by Anonymous-November 3, 2007 at 12:46 pm |
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发表于 2007-11-4 03:20:22
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