The press around the world has been swarming in the past two weeks with several announcements (as usual, unconfirmed) for the launch of the GPhone (or Google Phone, as you wish), for next Monday. Much is said, but little is really known about it. The worst: it is not even known if he will actually come.
Independent press agencies and blogs from the most respected in the world, such as the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, France Press Agency, e-Week, Forbes, Computerworld – IDG, ZD Net, Crunch Gear, Hindustan Times, Exame Informática, The state of Sao Paulo, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Corriere Della Sera, Times and others reported for more than 15 days about the launch of the Google Phone. They gave until a date: 03/09/2007, next Monday, North American work holiday and stated that this would be done both in the USA and in Europe
However, with everything that surrounds the media giant, this expected product is surrounded by mysteries. Some say that it is just another rumor and that the Google Phone should not be launched. Others say it will be released, but it will only be an operating system. A third chain says it will be launched and will consist of an operating system and a smartphone. In an excellent post dated 08/28/2007, the respected Danny Sullivan, from Search Engine Land, defended the thesis that Google will not launch a mobile phonebut, at most, you can present this week an operating system or or software packaged. For him, a device would shade the iPhone and this would not be within Google’s strategy. He even questioned the possibility of a launch on 9/3/2007, when he demonstrated that there had already been various rumors about the GPhone and none of them have come true.
You, reader, have no doubt that Danny Sullivan’s opinion must always be taken into account, because he is very well informed. However, I have reason to believe that, this time, he may be mistaken, which is no demerit, considering the large number of times he has already made correct predictions. First, what has been said about a hypothetical Google Phone cell phone would not compete with the iPhone, because it would be less sophisticated from the point of view of certain embedded technologies and, therefore, cheaper. It is always to be considered that Apple is a hardware company, which specializes in the development of equipment with the quality of Ferraris and Google is a media company, which apparently needs to have a cell phone, to encourage research for mobile equipment. . Thus, both products will never be competitors, but complementary. In addition, as much as there were many previous rumors, they have never been so consistent, repeated by such important press bodies and for so long and had not yet turned on the red light in the competition, which we will see later.
The overwhelming majority of the world press bets that this Monday a phone device specified by Google and with a Linux-based operating system developed by the team of the former Android will be launched. THE Crunch Gear came to affirm, on 08/27/2007, citing an internal industry source, that the phone would be built by the Taiwanese HTC and that it would be ready in the first quarter of 2008. He said that Sansung it would also provide the product, which would contain Maps, GPS, email, calendar and Google Talk with VoIP.
Stephen Wellman of The Information Week is more daring. You no longer question whether or not there will be a launch. sonly wants to know what the device will have. He wants to know if the phone will have a QWERT keyboard, if it will be GSM or CDMA, with access only over the cellular network or also over Wi-Fi, if Google Maps will work in real time with GPS, if Google will try to fit YouTube videos on your phone and will only work on 3G networks, also on 2.5G. These are all exciting questions. I think it will have a keyboard, either because it makes such a product cheaper, that it wouldn’t have to have a touch sensitive keyboard, the iPhone, either because the search user needs to have a keyboard shape, or because, seeing the models from HTC, I could see that many have QWERT keyboard. I believe that to serve all the markets desired by Google, the GPhone would either have to be GSM / GDMA at the same time, or it would have to have models with one technology or another. After all, just to give you an idea, GSM is dominant in Europe and CDMA in the United States. But this is a minor problem. I believe it will have dual access, over the cellular network and Wi-Fi. After all, the iPhone, it seems that it already has and that Blackbarry should have soon. Otherwise, it is Google’s policy to have open communication networks, because this facilitates your search business funded by advertising. As for YouTube, it will necessarily have to be integrated with this product, as long as it is through the 3G network, the only one that can receive such a large amount of data. As for networks capable of receiving it, I am aware that the priority will be 3G (eventually, even 4G – Japan and Korea seem to be already testing). However, this phone will have to go to developing countries and even Africa (which desperately needs to be integrated into the Internet world), where today, at most, there are 2.5G networks. Perhaps they will create a form of restricted access for these networks.
It seems quite possible to me that this version is true, even if the device is not yet on sale this Monday, HTC is not ready to produce them now. After all, Google is a media company based on Internet searches. It is worth remembering that Internet searches will be increasingly done with mobile devices. Google is trying to create a mobile phone company in the United States for the beginning of 2008. Finally, Microsoft’s move, which appears to be, to buy the RIM Blackberry suggests a real concern with the arrival of the iPhone and the GPhone, as the Le Figaro.
Finally, I just want to ask a question, which may have already been asked by someone, but which I have not yet read: will Google’s strategy be embedded, in addition to the launch of Google Phone and the creation of a mobile phone company, the supply (initially in the United States) of telephone sets or mobile telephone service partially or wholly subsidized by search advertising?
