Look out Apple, a Google cell phone? Rumors swirl!

[larryziegler]

Internet search giant is investing heavily in the mobile-search market
By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times
Article Last Updated: 09/04/2007 11:29:37 PM MDT


The Google phone is like the Roswell UFO, few outsiders know if it really exists, but it has a cult following.
Just months after Apple's iPhone mania gripped gadget heads nationwide, suspense is building over reports that Google plans to release its own cell phone.
The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors that the search giant might announce Linux-based mobile software as early as this week and a Google phone, which observers have dubbed the ''GPhone,'' by early 2008.
The latter is the most tantalizing to Silicon Valley, which is just getting over the June 29 launch of Apple Inc.'s multipurpose iPhone.
No one has displayed indisputable proof the GPhone exists. But one thing is certain, Google, which made $11 billion in 2007 from Web advertising, is investing heavily to target the potentially lucrative and contested mobile-search market. The plan is to have mobile-phone service offered free to consumers willing to put up with advertising.
The goal is for Google to broker advertising on mobile phones the way it has on the Web.
The fear is that wireless carriers worry that Google will muscle its way into the young market and capture their wireless advertising dollars.
The official line is that ''Google doesn't comment on speculation,'' company spokeswoman Erin Fors said.
In recent months, the company

is rumored to have aggressively sought to partner with mobile carriers and manufacturers to make its search engine, maps program and other software available on more mobile handsets and networks.
If Google does make an even more forceful move with Google-branded handsets to be offered by multiple wireless carriers, it would mark a seismic shift in the mobile industry.
At stake is the intensifying skirmish for the mobile-phone advertising dollar.
Research company Frost & Sullivan in July estimated the U.S. mobile advertising market would hit $450 million in 2007 and exceed $2 billion by 2011.
Another company, Gartner Inc., is even more bullish, predicting $3.9 billion in North America and $14.7 billion worldwide by 2011.
Analysts say the mobile phone is poised to become one of the most prevalent ways to access the Internet raising the stakes for Google.
Blogs are reporting that Google is choosing among 20 models of phones to be produced in early 2008 by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC Corp.
Purported photographs of Google's touch-screen handset have gotten loads of hits on the Web.
Blogger Mark ''Rizzn'' Hopkins says the phone will cost just $100. Web site CrunchGear says the phone will have the Google Talk instant messaging and Internet calling program, a special version of Google Maps with built-in GPS and Gmail, Google's e-mail service.

[KatWoman]

So many toys....so little cash <sigh>

[marvins_dad]

I've been keeping my eyes out for it...I guess I am an addict of all things Google the way that TJ is about Apple. But what brings me to the table of Google is that their products are either always free or worth the price you pay.

[Ghia_Roadster]

i heard about this yeterday too!