Reuters reports that Google has said yesterday that it would offer a software system to make the Internet work as smoothly on mobile phones as it does on computers.
“In its long-rumoured entry into the mobile phone market, the world’s leading Internet company said it would start next week by allowing independent designers to tinker with its software, known as ‘Android’. Google-based phones are due to appear in the latter half of next year.
Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile will start selling Google software-based phones next year. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and KDDI and European and Latin American operator Telefonica also said they were working with handset makers to develop Google-based phones.
Interestingly, the article discusses how Google is more interested in getting the technology ‘out there’ rather than worrying overmuch how companies will make this work financially.
“Let’s put the technology enablers in place and figure out how to monetize it later,” Andy Rubin, the official in charge of Google’s mobile phone push, told Reuters in an interview. “You won’t see a completely ad-driven cell phone on this system for some time,” he said during a company news conference.”
Since Google is offering the software for free, Rubin said operators may pass along something like 10 percent savings to customers through phone subsidies or lower monthly fees.”
More at Reuters
This entry was posted by Peter Jackson on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 9:33 am and is tagged with and is posted in the category Tech News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a reply below. Pinging is currently not allowed.
... "Google has said yesterday that it would offer a software system to make the Internet work as smoothly on mobile phones as it does on computers"...
Yikes! If I want a phone then a mobile is acceptable; a camera is good for pictures; a PC is good for the internet. AFAIK carrying a keyboard + monitor around qualifies as a laptop.
You should try using an iPod touch/iPhone... I have the former (and won't be getting the latter due to the £35/month contract) but it does certainly the best job I've yet come across of browsing the internet on a mobile device - and that's after having owned a variety of phones, smartphones and PDAs over the years. It really is surprisingly usable, so it shows that internet browsing on a mobile device is certainly possible.
The ipod thing may well be usable - but if I need a phone I go to the nearest landline and press a few of the digits (0-9) provided.
The number of occasions I've actually needed access to a mobile have not been common - and most of those are of "it's there just in case I need it variety".
£35/month is just plain daft.
I've never been so desperate to look at a web site/email that it can't wait until I can get to some access point - even if it has to be a modem in a run-down hotel.
Slightly more coherent report on the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7078921.stm
It's also clear that companies will have a financial advantage from using the Android stack - which is free - rather than having to licence software from Microsoft, Symbian, Palm or RiM, Google bought Android and make their software available foc to the Open Handset Alliance - and anyone else when the SDK is released next week.
> Slightly more coherent report on the BBC..
..well Bob, you'd expect that that they would have; paid journalists and the like. What you got here today was raw news, as it happens, straight from the source! 
It wasn't you I was accusing of being incoherent Pete, it was the Reuters report which took 9 people to write it and was then edited by 2 others.
The dateline on the BBC is Monday, 5 November 2007, 17:11 GMT, that on Reuters is Mon Nov 5, 2007 11:41pm GMT - that is five and a half hours later than the BBC. I expect the delay was trying to decide who would write which bit.
No worries.. I'd assumed you were talking about the Reuters piece. As a source of broad info it does give a lot of depth that a journo would find useful enough to put an article together - that's what Reuters is for after all. Anyway, I'm glad that you found this of interest, I was beginning to wonder if anyone was reading my 'Tech News'
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