Elizabeth Judge
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to The Sunday Times
* Money Central: 50 reason not to buy an iPhone
Google is set to shake up the mobile sector by making the internet more accessible through mobile phones.
The internet search giant ended months of speculation by revealing that it is plotting with partners including T-Mobile and Motorola to replicate its runaway success online in the mobile phone industry.
The Californian giant, which is hoping to seize a big chunk of the potential multi-billion mobile dollar advertising market, said it is working on software aimed at giving mobile users easier, smoother access to the internet on the move.
The operating system, which it has titled Android, will “be an unprecedented mobile platform,” the group said.
The Google search icon is already available on many mobile handsets. But by making the ‘mobile internet’ more accessible it hopes to encourage more subscribers to use its applications on the move.
However it disappointed analysts by saying it had no plans for a Google branded device.
Phones powered by Google’s technology will also not appear though before the second half of 2008.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman and chief executive, said: “This partnership will help unleash the potential of mobile technology for billions of users around the world.
“Our vision is that the powerful platform we are unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.”
Unlike with Apple, which looked to secure exclusive tie-ups, Google is keen to have its system installed in as many devices as possible.
As part of its assault on the mobile market it has formed a new alliance including more than 30 operators.
Network operators signed up to the project include T-Mobile while enlisted handset manufacturers include Motorola, the US giant, and HTC, the fast-growing Taiwanese manufacturer.
However Google is also in talks with the major UK operators too including Vodafone and Orange.
While mobile companies feel obliged to embrace the big name internet players and their efforts to enter the mobile world they are also unsettled by the development.
At present operators like Vodafone and handset makers have tight control over what services customers can access and the revenues they make but that is already changing.
O2 was given the contract to market the Apple iPhone only on condition that it would give a generous share of ongoing subscriber revenues to Apple - an unprecedented upheaval to the mobile companies’ long-established business models.
Despite talking to Google, Arun Sarin, the head of Vodafone, has already sought to play down the importance of the group’s plans, claiming: "What is it that is missing in life that they [Google] are going to fulfil?
"You can reach Google already through a number of devices. You don't need a Google phone to do that,” he said.
Industry watchers said the public comments were a sign of how troubled the phone companies are by Google’s plans.
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By giving up monthly fees to Apple in order to get customer numbers, ATT and O2 and the other carriers have embarked on a poor model for their own future... that of being simple communication providers whilst handset manufacturers hold the real reins of power. Their short term greed will come back to haunt them.
Kevin, New York, NY