Following recent events related to the FCC’s upcoming bandwidth auction, respected financial paper the Wall Street Journal has published an extensive article which claims that Google is even further advanced with work on its ‘G-Phone’ than had been previously suspected. Key points from the piece include:
- Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project
- It has created a technical standard that would form the basis of Google-branded phones. The standard includes wi-fi, cameras, 3G, and possibly GPS
- LG is one of the companies that Google has held talks with
- Google is developing its own mobile web browser
- It is considering an entirely ad-funded mobile service — with no subscription charges
- It has hired Sidekick designer Andy Rubin for the project
- Prototypes are ‘not as revolutionary as the iPhone’
- It has approached a wide range of operators in the US and Europe
Google apparently does not intend to charge a license fee for its new mobile platform: the project is all about cash from mobile advertising. The WSJ says that mobile ad revenues are expected to rise from $1.5b (£750m) today to $14b (£7b) a year by 2011, and Google wants to get its hands on some of that cash. Whatever Google’s motivation, something (well) wicked this way comes.
(Via mocoNews)
gimme, gimme, gimme Gphone