The Google phone is still alive

Rumors: Google's blackberry-like device, with VoIP, running on Apple's iPhone!

There is a lot of noise about the fact that Google has denied it's building its own cell phone. That just means that Google is designing the software, and will go with existing hardware companies to build the device. Although I've heard sources say that Google does want to make the hardware, and is spending big bucks to do so. But it will work with existing cell phone makers and, most interestingly, could be part of Apple's iPhone!

Here's an interesting note. CNet reported on March 5 that Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners wrote in his blog that "an inside source has told him that [the Google phone] will be a Blackberry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap and optimized Java and that it offer voice over Internet Protocol."

CNet links to Simeon's blog at:
http://simeons.wordpress.com/2007/03/04
/the-real-google-phone/

But that March 4 posting has been removed! Sounds like Simeon's "inside source" -- probably someone at Google -- made him take it down.

Simeon said Google is not building the device itself. Via CNet:

"Apparently, Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers by allowing them to minimize subscription and marketing costs," Simeonov writes. "In other words, Google will market the phone online and carriers will fulfill. How fast can you say dumb pipe?"

So Google denies it's making hardware -- at least in the mobile phone category. But it does do hardware. At the CNET post, someone who calls himself raymondsung99 says he saw a recent Google job posting for an ASIC designer. If Google wants chip designers, it's doing something with hardware.

And one more idea: Will Google be part of Steve Jobs' unveiling of the iPhone? In a Reuters report that Google will not do hardware, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster gives and interesting quote: "We believe Google is working with, not against, Apple in the mobile world." A Google-Apple collaboration would be an interesting announcement, probably blowing Microsoft's acquisition of Tellme out of the news waves.

Remember, Sergey loves Apple and has promised that we'll see some collaboration between the two companies.

And never forget that Google is dedicated to cheap or free access to info. The Google phone -- and probably the iPhone -- will give us direct-to-internet calls and searches. When you use Tellme's phone, you have to pay the cellular provider for all that data transmission time, which gets very expensive.

Google is still in the running.

Comments

[dgfghgfh]

Google Hardware Engineer job posts, though they don't say anything specifically about phones:

http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=26171

http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=37821