A company that started as a little-known search engine run out of a garage in California officially entered the cellular phone market on Monday. But for a company with precisely zero experience in the market, there sure seems to be a lot of fuss about it. Yes, Google might have grown by the tens of billions since their servers were housed in a garage 10 years ago, but who is to say they are capable of creating a cell phone platform?
Well, apparently, a lot of people. The list includes big-time cell phone players Motorola, Sprint Nextel, Qualcomm, and T-Mobile, among others. Google announced that they are partnering with 34 other companies to form a group called the Open Headset Alliance. The platform Google has been designing for the project is called "Android."
So, what is Android? Google's new mobile platform is a Linux-based software that will compete with current platforms such as the Blackberry OS, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, the Palm OS, and Apple's OS X on the iPhone. One of the biggest differences between Android and other operating systems is that it is going to be open-source, which will allow other software developers and phone carriers to access it for free. This inherently poses a major threat to Android's competitors, who charge carriers for their operating systems. It also allows and encourages software developers to design new applications that can be run on phones with Android.
Google claims that the new software is capable of handling any type of Web content that a basic PC can. What's more is that the Android platform can handle more than one application at a time, which current platforms cannot do. For example, you can be surfing the web, but then decide you need to make a call or open another Web site without closing what you were working on.
Though Android is open-source, making it free, I promise you that Google is not in the cell-phone business for charity. By creating a platform that allows easier and supposed unrestricted access to the internet, Google can significantly increase the number of click-throughs on the Web.
That, in turn, would significantly increase exposure to their ads online, leading to an increase in ad revenue. Android also opens the door to a host of other potential advertising and marketing opportunities for the internet giant. The world is moving towards mobile media, and Google is making sure that they will have a piece of the pie, both from a software and marketing standpoint. By increasing their exposure on mobile phones, Google will attract the people their advertising clients are trying to reach. It is important to note that Google executives have not explicitly outlined this as their plan, but it isn't hard to imagine a situation similar to this becoming a reality.
For now, Google only plans on releasing their new software on phones released by their partners in the OHA. The first Android phones are aiming for a planned release sometime in the fall of 2008. The likely carriers that will offer phones with the software will be Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. However, you may notice that the other, bigger carriers, AT&T and Verizon, have not signed on to the Open Headset Alliance. There is varying speculation as to why they haven't signed on, but many believe the primary reason is they see Google and Android as a threat to the industry and their profits. A platform that essentially offers unlimited access to the internet could threaten the carriers in multiple ways. With free access to document creation, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), e-mail, games, and other applications, carriers would lose a substantial amount of income from these services that are traditionally charged at an extra fee. Carriers would lose much of the control that they hold over their customers, and in turn could risk some of their profit.
Will we ever see a gPhone? Google executives won't say … yet. For now, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says there will be a variety of Android phones offered by several wireless carriers. But even without a dedicated gPhone, we can all look forward to a software platform designed to better the user experience, while also being light on the pocketbook. All the while, Google is extending its seemingly endless grip on the technological world.
My hunch is that Steve and Bill might be sweating a little about this one.
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