THE HEADY MIX of mobility, computing and the Internet now sweeping the mobile industry is akin to getting gassed with nitrous oxide at the dentist.
Suddenly, preposterous notions seem plausible, even amusing. Yet, in this pervasive fog, it’s difficult to discount the possibilities.
Enter the “Google phone,” a notion that says a lot about a converged world, not to mention the spectators who cheer and jeer the denizens of that world.
Coming on the heels of Apple Inc.’s long-awaited iPhone debut-whose mere announcement in January has infiltrated so many wireless discussions-the notion of a Google phone has, perhaps not surprisingly, generated substantial print and Internet reactions.
(Chasing a Google rumor? Just “Google it,” a procedure that underscores the rumor’s presumed logic. If proper nouns can become verbs, why not a Google phone?)
Far-reaching views
Industry watchers latched onto remarks by Google’s Spanish executive, Isabel Aguilera, that the Internet search company was exploring
such an idea and found evidence for it in the tea leaves: various acquisitions and hires Google has made that might reflect at least a pilot project. Google’s rumored partners ran the gamut of handset vendors and network operators. Stories appeared in papers from London to New York to Sydney to Beijing. That was mid-March.
Within a week, one online commentator confidently declared, “Google hangs up on mobile phone idea,” citing a Google executive in Southeast Asia, Richard Kimber, who noted in The Australian Financial Review that such a notion was counter to the company’s business model.
Has the ozone layer blanketing the Earth been replaced by nitrous oxide?
Layers of doubt
Analysts are skeptical that the market forces driving the big Internet companies to get their services integrated into mobile platforms would also drive those companies to get into the business of making mobile handsets. Even the idea that Google might co-brand a device with a veteran handset maker meets with doubt.
Discussion of the rumor, however, underscored that the long-awaited world of convergence is here, at least in terms of business alliances and technology roadmaps, if not in the high-end devices available today. And there’s data on how well the Internet portal companies are doing in their race to get integrated into smartphone platforms and grab the consumer by the, er, device.
Real estate the goal
“Devices are important and owning part of the device ‘real estate’ is viewed as crucial, given the quite-restricted nature of mobile platforms, in terms of user interface and browse-ability,” said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst at M:Metrics. “Being the first thing the end user sees when he turns on the device is obviously appealing to all the Web brands. And Google definitely has platform ambitions. So owning the user experience definitely starts with the device.”
For McAteer, the most realistic scenario is for Internet portals to make a land grab on the handset’s platform. M:Metrics has launched MeterDirect to record smartphone user behavior on devices running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile, as well as the Symbian and Palm operating systems, starting in the United States and the United Kingdom.
“It’s evident that Google is ahead of its peers in driving traffic over those devices,” McAteer said.
Battle of the titans
Google and MSN are the two leading portals in the U.S. and U.K., two countries M:Metrics currently tracks with MeterDirect. In the U.S., the online titans top the list while carrier portals are farther down, the analyst said. Google’s brand dominance is crossing over from the PC to the mobile Internet, McAteer said.
Across all smartphone devices, Yahoo Inc. has the lead in terms of brand reach with 7.1 percent of end users choosing Yahoo-branded mobile Internet services, vs. Google with 4.1 percent. On devices with full Internet browsers-the market Google is pursuing with a new platform, McAteer said-Google leads.
That Google et al are all about mobility is a given.
“If you look at unit sales of mobile devices and you’re a Google, you cannot overlook getting onto the mobile phone,” said Bill Hughes, analyst at In-Stat. “It’s an opportunity that you cannot ignore.”
When it comes to a “Google phone,” however, Hughes is a show-me Missourian.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Hughes said. “Companies that are not in the wireless industry have the idea that a mobile phone is a simple device, that you just add your feature and off you go. But just because you’re successful in computing or the Internet doesn’t transfer to success in another industry, whether it’s Apple or Google or name-any-wildly popular-brand.”
Shooting for the moon
Hughes said he’s a “big fan” of co-branding between big brands and handset makers, but a look at mobile virtual network operators reflects a mixed record for that model. One snag: Companies set unrealistically high expectations, leading to failure on their own terms and a bruised brand. The analyst warned that Apple’s iPhone could fall prey to this trap.
Yet a recent In-Stat survey showed that 62 percent of respondents were open to the idea of ditching their laptops in favor of a smartphone-like device, providing it had a bigger screen and keyboard and easier synchronization than current models.
“That says to me that if the industry makes a useable device, it would be accepted,” Hughes concluded.
That willingness by end users to consider alternatives is likely to drive Nokia Corp., Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google and myriad others to consider alternatives as well, according to McAteer.
“Mobile handsets are becoming real computers, and this speculation about a Google phone is validation of that fact,” McAteer said.
“The fact that companies you associate with landline computing are showing up in force in the mobile arena really demonstrates that (mobile) is a serious computing platform for Internet-based services. Nokia understands that and is definitely ahead of the curve in terms of thinking of Web services and what they’re doing with the Symbian operating system.
“The wireless industry is changing,” McAteer continued. “The notion of being ‘outside wireless’ is now an oxymoron. These rumored devices draw a lot of fascination because the concepts are really important. They represent a sea change in wireless. Microsoft has to think like a mobile platform company and drive its brand onto a platform, as Nokia is doing. It’s no longer just a phone. It’s a social computing platform.”
As for the schadenfreude-one’s pleasure in another’s misfortune-reflected by the chatter such rumors create?
“Everyone wants to see the incumbents fail,” the analyst concluded.
