A Google phone is the talk of the blogosphere
No outsider can prove it exists, and the company won't comment, but rumors are rife that a possible iPhone killer could be out by next year.
By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2007
The Google Phone is like the Roswell UFO: Few outsiders know if it really exists, but it's got a cult following.
Just months after iPhone mania gripped Silicon Valley gadget heads, suspense is building over reports that Google Inc. plans to release its own cellphone.
The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors that the search giant may announce Linux-based mobile software as early as this week and a Google phone, which observers have cheekily dubbed the GPhone, by early next year.
The latter is the most tantalizing to Silicon Valley, which is just getting over the June 29 launch of Apple Inc.'s multipurpose iPhone.
No one has displayed indisputable proof that the GPhone exists. But one thing is certain: Google, which took in nearly $11 billion last year from Web advertising, is investing heavily to target the potentially lucrative and hotly contested mobile search market.
The vision: mobile-phone service offered free of monthly charges to consumers willing to put up with advertising.
The goal: for Google to broker advertising on mobile phones the way it has on the Web.
The fear: Wireless carriers worry that Google will muscle its way into the young market and capture their wireless advertising dollars.
The official line: "Google doesn't comment on rumor or speculation," company spokeswoman Erin Fors said.
In recent months the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is rumored to have aggressively sought to partner with mobile carriers and manufacturers to make its search engine, maps program and other software available on more mobile handsets and networks.
If Google does make an even more forceful move with Google-branded handsets to be offered by multiple wireless carriers, it would mark a seismic shift in the mobile industry.
"For Google, maintaining itself as a search leader as wireless Internet access grows is extremely important since this is one area with extremely high growth prospects," said Weston Henderek, senior analyst with market research firm Current Analysis Inc.
At stake is the mobile-phone advertising dollar, object of an intensifying battle.
Research firm Frost & Sullivan in July estimated that the U.S. mobile advertising market would hit $450 million in 2007 and exceed $2 billion by 2011. Another firm, Gartner Inc., is even more bullish, predicting $3.9 billion in North America and $14.7 billion worldwide by 2011.
"Everybody is really focusing on advertising as a source of revenue, especially in the United States," said Vikrant Gandhi, a strategic analyst with Frost & Sullivan's mobile and wireless group.
The mobile phone is poised to become one of the most prevalent ways to access the Internet, analysts say, raising the stakes for Google. That's why the company is exploring ways to get its services on all such devices and why it might undertake the risky but ambitious gambit of producing its own phone.
Google declined to confirm whether a GPhone was in the works but said it was "collaborating with partners worldwide to bring Google search and applications to mobile users everywhere."
Technology analyst Rob Enderle predicts that the GPhone -- if it exists -- will be an iPhone killer. Blogs are reporting that Google is choosing among 20 models of phones to be produced in early 2008 by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC Corp. Purported photographs of Google's touch-screen handset have gotten loads of hits on the Web.
Blogger Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins, who claims to have a well-placed source, says the phone will cost just $100. Website CrunchGear says the phone will have the Google Talk instant messaging and Internet calling program, a special version of Google Maps with a built-in global positioning system and Gmail, Google's e-mail service.
Enderle said a Google-branded phone that made cheap or free calls and that was better-equipped to surf the Internet would be a winner with the high-tech crowd and the general public.
"For free or nearly free, you betcha I'd stand in line for it," Enderle said.
Buzz about a Google phone began in 2005 when Google bought Android Inc., a software start-up led by the same people behind T-Mobile's Sidekick handset. Android kept its plans secret, saying only that it was developing mobile software.
More recently, Google said it would bid at least $4.6 billion for wireless spectrum licenses if the Federal Communications Commission required whoever controls the airwaves to make them open to all devices and wireless services. Although the FCC adopted only some of those rules for the airwave auction, Google said it was still considering a bid.
But GPhone speculation has heightened during the dog days of summer.
Last week an Indian newspaper, the Business Standard, reported that Google was planning to launch a mobile phone in the next few weeks. The report, citing unnamed sources, was picked up by Indian Web portal Rediff.com and then whipped around the blogosphere.
Some are skeptical that Google would tweak its highly profitable business model so radically to get into the hardware business. It has often said it preferred to partner with hardware companies, not make its own computing gadgets.
Even so, Duncan Riley, a staffer with Silicon Valley technology site TechCrunch, has joined the ranks of the believers. He said, "Some sort of Google mobile device in development is a given."
Technology writer Jacqui Cheng consulted his Magic 8-Ball for guidance on whether the GPhone exists.
The 8-ball's response: "Yes."
