RSSGoogle Exec Quashes Mobile Phone Rumors
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 22, 2007, 3:15 PM
In rather emphatic and unmistakable terms, a managing director for Google's Southeast Asia operations flatly denied his company is building a cell phone of its own, in a statement for The Australian Financial Review, despite reports from major press services over the past 48 hours that the company had actually confirmed those rumors.
BetaNews had been seeking confirmation of the "confirmation," but had received none from either Google itself or from reputable analysts with whom we've communicated in the past. On Tuesday, Nomura mobile phone industry analyst Richard Windsor said he was told at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, writing in an official note circulated through press sources, "Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own."
Google's Richard Kimber told the Australian press that his company is not making a "GPhone" - a rumor which Google has had to quash before - and then quoted his company's celebrated chief evangelist, Vinton Cerf, in emphasizing that Google is a software company, not a hardware company. Google doesn't need to produce hardware to get Google's brand on it, he emphasized.
Naturally, analysts today have extrapolated new meanings from Kimber's statement, going so far as to speculate that a recently discovered patent application filed last July and published last month, for multiplexing search results to mobile devices through simultaneous connections, is an indicator that Google may be planning to partner with Apple in developing unique new services for its iPhone. Making this speculation is noted Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
This afternoon's Reuters story, citing Jaffray, reads, "Speculation about Google products has been wrong before." It does not go on to cite a Reuters story run just hours earlier which spread the "GPhone" confirmation news, which has since apparently been withdrawn.
They may not be really into making hardware but what's to stop them from partnering with, say LG or Samsung or foo asian phone builder?
Most of them (esp. LG) could use to have their crap and fragmented interface replaced by someone who knows better.
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|Bollocks. Google may not put together the plastic bits and pieces of the phone themselves but there will be a Gphone (or whatever it's called) because the iPhone will change the face of the mobile phone market and there's just too much money in it for Google not to get involved. I can't see Google working with Apple because Apple are notoriously difficult to work with and basically why work for someone when you can do it better for yourself. It will happen - remember the protestations there was no iPhone planned and never would be?
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|Just because iPod is successful does not mean everything Jobs touch will become gold. We will see in a few months.
I honestly think it's laughable this iPhone so call innovation comparing what's available in Asia and Europe. For real, how many will to put out $500 for a mp3 player and lock in with 2 years contract with Cingular. Not only that, support from Apple?
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|how many? LOTS.
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|You miss the point by at least a mile. The iPhone does not have to be succesful to change the face of the mobile phone market - it just has to have an impact and it's already had an impact without being released. Even if it's never released then something else along the lines of the iPhone will be released because the cat's now out of the bag.
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|One of my best friends works for a small elite team within Google, and has seen and described it in detail. Apparently the main goal is to reinvent a revolutionary UI to make the web much more accessable on a mobile. This little birdie says its also a flip phone with a large screen. I don't think they are going to be manufacturing it in house though.
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|"Google is a software company, not a hardware company"
What's the Google Mini then?
http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/
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|well to be fair, they having IBM make hardware for them more recently. I think perhaps the hardware is not made in house.
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|http://www.google.com/enterprise/mini/index.html
Correct link to Google Mini
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|Thanks, but that actually points out they have two distinct hardware products: Google Search Appliance (GSA), and Google Mini.
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|Doesn't matter. Microsoft enlists outsourced help for their mouse and keyboard products. They still claim them as "their products" by virtue of press releases and package branding. Same is true for Google. So, Kimber says they're not making a "GPhone", which technically could be politispeak for "it's actually going to be called something else". I suspect a "Google Phone".
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