Google phone may be in the works

GOOGLE is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is “investigating” in such a project, reports in Google isn’t commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the US, which describe a low-cost, internetconnected phone with a colour, wide-screen design. Newspaper and blog reports in recent months have Google shopping its phone design to potential mobile phone manufacturing partners in Asia. “Mobile is an important area for Google,” Google spokeswoman Erin Fors said. “We remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce.” Gadget enthusiasts who only two months ago were obsessed with the potential revolutionary impact on the phone industry of Apple’s iPhone device — due out in June and at prices starting at $500 — have shifted their attention to whether Google is developing an even lowercost phone. To be sure, feverish speculation about Google products has been wrong before. Google was widely reported to be building its own line of personal computers a little over a year ago. What in fact materialised was a set of free software programs designed to make any existing Windows PCs easier to use. But Richard Windsor, a phone analyst with brokerage Nomura in London, told clients late last week that unspecified Google representatives at a major European conference in Germany had confirmed the company is working on its own phone device. “Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own,” Mr Windsor said in a note entitled “Google Phone: From myth to reality.” “This is not going to be a high-end device, but a mass market device aimed at bringing Google to users who don’t have a PC,” he said. Over the past year, Google has branched out beyond computers to bring web search, email, mapping and other web services to millions of new and existing phone browsers worldwide. Rivals Microsoft and Yahoo also are racing to run web services on mobile phones. Simeon Simeonov, a Bostonbased venture capitalist with Polaris Venture Partners, said in a March 4 blog post that an “inside source close to the company” had informed him that Google was developing a “Blackberry-like, slick device.” The device Simeonov describes could handle voice over internet phone-calling. He said it is being developed within a 100-person mobile phone group at Google that includes Andy Rubin, the creator of Sidekick, a popular phone/internet device that he developed at a prior company he founded, Danger. — Reuters .

Courtesy: EconomicTimes
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