After many months of speculation and rumor, this week Google has unveiled its new “GPhone,” except it not actually a phone–it’s something much more. Google is planning a global alliance of mobile phone manufacturers, computer programmers, and wireless service carriers, all united in the cause of developing a new generation of wireless technology.
Google’s new GPhone is actually a cell phone operating system known as “Android.” The truly remarkable thing is that the Android operating system is open-source, enabling anyone to create programs for any phone using the new Google system. Some analysts are already speculating that the new open source Android mobile operating system could ring in a new era of creativity and integration of Internet and cell phone services.
David Weinberger, of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and society, is speculating that the Google proposal, “can do to cell phones what the Internet did for the personal computer.”
The beauty of Google’s new Android cell phone operating system is that anyone can write a program for it and share it with the world. This suggests we could soon see a huge creative breakthrough in mobile phone applications and mobile Internet technology. Assuming of course, that Google is able to carry out its ambitious plan.
The problem is that in the US, the cell phone market is closed, and mobile carriers generally “lock” mobile phones to their own network, excluding all others. Google is attempting to overthrow this entire philosophy of mobile communication by keeping all cell phones “open,” with an open-source operating system.
But even as big as Google is at this time, some analysts still doubt that their ambitious plan can succeed. The mobile phone industry’s huge players, such as AT&T, are sure to fight Google’s move tooth and nail. After all, the closed cell phone market has been the foundation of their entire selling strategy within the US.
Oddly enough, Google’s new Android operating system is bound to be widely received in Europe, where consumers are not used to the idea of a “closed” cell phone marketplace, and changing mobile carriers is often an easy as simply changing a SIM card inside your phone.
But if Google succeeds with its ambitious plan of an open cell phone market, what will the net effect be for consumers? First, you would never have to worry if a downloadable program would work on your cell phone as long as it was using the Google software. Any phone, by any manufacturer that adopts the Google system will run any software developed for that system. Sounds a lot like Windows, doesn’t it?
But cell phone users are not likely to see the effect of Google’s ambitious plan for sometime. You can expect to see the Google enabled phones available for sale late in 2008.
[...] With Google jumping headfirst into the mobile phone industry, other big IT companies are — wisely — following suit. CNet news is reporting that Microsoft has purchased Danger, the Palo Alto-based manufacturer of the T-Mobile Sidekick smart phone. In a statement released recently, Microsoft confirmed that Danger had been acquired for an undisclosed amount. [...]
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