Once Apple had finally launched its iPhone, the pundits had to have a new topic of speculation, and a ‘Google phone’ was a fairly obvious choice. It seems that Google has a team working on a mobile device, geared to open internet applications such as VoIP (and presumably optimized for search and advert delivery).
The project may be experimental rather than designed for commercial launch, but it does beg the question of why internet players, which are fully capable of turning the mobile business model upside down with their ad-driven, unwalled services, also want to get into networks and devices themselves.
Google was much rumored in 2005-6, of course, to be trying to become a telco – not just an MVNO leveraging its brand for an open internet optimized service, but an actual network owner, investing in mesh metrozones and fiber backhaul that would accelerate internet usage by offering low cost access, and so drive further revenues for Google’s advertising. So far, the only concrete development in this direction has been Google’s funding of a mesh network in its home town of Mountain View, California – hardly an uncommon tactic for a vendor to create a network on which to test out new services and user behavior, using local inhabitants as its guinea pigs. In other areas, Google has shown no signs of wanting to own networks, working with partner Earthlink in San Francisco for instance. It is happy to lend its financial and market weight to schemes that will stimulate new forms of internet usage, but that is hardly a dramatic shift in strategy.
The same may be true of the device. If Google wants to launch a product that will reinforce its brand and provide low cost access, it only needs to go to an ODM, not hire a team of 100 to create the device, as reports say it has done. More likely, it wants to experiment with new ways of using the internet, including ads, on a small platform – ways that might accelerate user adoption of the open internet model on their phones. Such work is still badly needed, especially on the browser, user interface and the format and interaction of ads and content. There have been major strides made recently, as epitomized by the fluid UI of Apple’s iPhone and some of Nokia’s newest Safari-based models; the developments in widgets by Opera and others; and the start of the breakdown of the walled gardens by operators like 3 and Sprint and their internet partners.
But Google’s track record in this area could add significantly to the progress in an area where the user experience remains immature and inadequate, even though it would have none of the skills, partnerships or structures in place to join the hardware device race in earnest. More likely, it would use its developments to enhance its own software developments by trialing them on a super-advanced mobile platform, and possibly partner with a handset maker such as Motorola or Nokia in a collaborative venture to launch the products for real. (In the wake of Google’s recently announced partnership with Samsung to embed its mobile services on select Samsung phones, there are also rumors that the Korean giant will work with the search company on a Google phone.)
The main new instigator of the rumors is Simeon Simeonov, a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners, who said in his blog and in an interview with news service Unstrung that the company has a team of 100 working on a device, and the activity is headed up by Andy Rubin, founder of mobile email device maker Danger, which Google acquired when it bought Android in August 2005. Google also added to its mobile capabilities in 2005 by buying mobile applications firm ReqWireless and device graphics engine developer Skia. Simeonov says his inside source tells him that the company is working on a BlackBerry-like device that would run Java and probably Linux.
Clearly, a device like Google’s would be heavily oriented to internet applications such as VoIP, and its choice of whether to run Wi-Fi, cellular links or both would depend on the carrier and consumer strategy. Logically, it would be a Wi-Fi only product like the Nokia Internet Tablet, but strong interest from a cellular carrier, wanting to drive uptake of its services, could mandate a GSM/UMTS connection too.
The attractiveness of combining the internet and cellular aspects will also depend, in some countries, on regulatory attitudes. This was highlighted by VoIP company Skype’s recent petition to the US FCC to allow consumers to load third party, IP-based software, such as VoIP clients, onto their mobile phones – a move that could create an explosion in usage of the Skype client, which has to date been adopted by only a few carriers, notably 3, for selected handsets.
However, the FCC is unlikely to agree to the request without broad wireless industry support, and the CTIA, the trade association that represents that industry, said in its response to the FCC that Skype’s proposal would ‘freeze the innovation and choice hundreds of millions of consumers enjoy today’.
Skype would also have to take on the burden of making its software compatible with dozens of proprietary operating systems if it wanted to move beyond the high end Linux/Windows/Symbian smartphones and into the mass market. The complexities of supporting many handset models and frequent updates should not be ignored by the internet giants – it will be many long years, despite moves to open interfaces and frameworks, before the cellphone development platform is consistent across vendors like the PC’s.
‘They’re going to have real problems outside the smartphone segment,’ said one analyst. ‘When you get to the high end segment, the Skype client would have access to some handset operating system resources, but not the critical ones, based on carrier imposed constraints. Skype is fighting for carriers to unlock the mid-tier phones that comprise the bulk of the market.’
Another rumor in the world of mobile devices is that Palm is due to release a WiMAX smartphone later this year (assuming it hasn’t been acquired by Nokia, or someone else, by then). An anonymous source told devices web site Engadget that Palm would release its first ultra-thin model in its Treo range, with a WiMAX connection that might be designed to catch Sprint’s eye.
Looking on the very bright side, Stone Tseng, vice president of WiMAX 4G ecosystem at Nortel, said recently that the market for WiMAX terminals of various kinds could be 10 times larger than the current cellular handset market due to the many potential applications of the technology beyond the conventional handset.