GigaOM is reporting that Google may be in talks with UK mobile phone service provider Orange to produce a mobile phone pre-loaded with Google’s software that would allow even easier access to Google’s mobile services on the move.
From the original Observer article:
Their plans centre on a branded Google phone, which would probably also carry Orange’s logo. The device would not be revolutionary: manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese firm specialising in smart phones and Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), it might have a screen similar to a video iPod. But it would have built-in Google software which would dramatically improve on the slow and cumbersome experience of surfing the web from a mobile handset.
It’s likely that we’d see things like Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and perhaps the Docs & Spreadsheets apps on this phone – but where would this leave Google services on other handsets?
Google already have done some good work into getting their online services into the mobile arena, with Gmail available through XHTML and a Java application for phones and many of their other services having mobile incarnations.
What would this device uniquely offer in that case – a better experience, additional services that haven’t been ported to the mobile platform yet or what?
Google already offers its search engine and other services on mobile phones. It has a partnership with Vodafone and last month announced a broadband agreement with the operator 3. It is working to make youTube, the video-sharing site it bought recently for £870m, easily accessible on handsets. But it is eager to expand in what experts see as a huge potential market, possibly the key to the future of the internet.
Manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola are working to make the mobile internet commonplace. Earlier this year Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice-president of Nokia, said at a product show in New York: ‘In the mid-Nineties I said that if you don’t have a mobile phone you will be making a declaration that you wanted to be outside organised society. People said I was crazy, but now everybody has a mobile phone. Today I’m saying that in 10 years’ time the same will be true if you don’t have the full internet in your pocket.
A spokesman for Google said: ‘We don’t comment on market speculation and rumour, but we are focused on mobile and there’s nothing new in our commitment to that space.’ Orange declined to comment.
Interesting… very interesting.
