The search giant's mobile offensive, like the iPhone, may force new cracks in the way the wireless industry operates
by Olga Kharif, Businessweek, Technology
Still coming to terms with Apple's iPhone invasion, the cellular industry now finds itself bracing for yet another intrusion by a mighty outsider bent on altering the way wireless does business. This time it's Google.
New signals and speculation about Google's (GOOG) mobile initiatives emerge daily, but with no clear proclamations as yet from the Web search leader. One day there's buzz that Google will follow Apple's (AAPL) lead by introducing its own mobile device, the gPhone. Next comes word the company has developed its own mobile operating system or Web browser. Against this uncertain backdrop, providers of wireless service, handsets, and software have been left to guess anxiously at Google's true intentions, not unlike children gathered about a campfire, scanning for monsters in the shadowy forest.
Google Platform?
So what's really lurking behind those trees? A source familiar with the situation tells BusinessWeek.com that Google may be preparing a new mobile platform, a would-be rival to the Nokia-dominated (NOK) Symbian OS, Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile, mobile Linux, Palm (PALM), and other operating systems.
The new operating system, which may be named gPhone, was developed in part with know-how Google acquired with a startup named Android in 2005. The platform is designed to enable lower-priced "smartphones" featuring more robust Web browsing and multimedia applications. Most importantly for Google, it will work hand in glove with the company's mobile search engine and other Google applications that are already popular on personal computers. And it would allow Google to bring new applications to the wireless market faster. Google declined to confirm or deny this information.
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