Google Phone? March 7, 2007
Posted by Vikas Tandon in mobile telephony, telecom.2 comments
Hardly had I stopped drooling over the Apple iPhone, when what do I hear but the other sex symbol of the Internet, Google, also has plans for a Google Phone. Wow! Most of the gossip around the Google Phone seems to be like an urban legend, even referred to as the “mythical” Google Phone in some posts.
Here are some interesting links for more on the phone:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/the-google-switch-an-iphone-killer/
http://simeons.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/the-real-google-phone/
For a sanity check on these reports, also visit http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/samsungandgoogle.html
Besides the natural excitement at the prospect of yet another cool gadget, this news also excites me in another way. It further underscores, if at all further underscoring was required, that convergence is already upon us. Think about it – what is a computer hardware company, or for that matter a search engine of dotcom lineage doing building phones? Its like HLL starting to build phones. HLL is a respected company known for quality products, but would you trust them with a phone?
And yet, I’m sure there’s a critical mass of gadget freaks (incl me) who’re quite enthusiastic about this possibility, and would not doubt Google too much in its capabilities to launch a kick-ass phone.
To me this is a big indicator of a shift that has been predicted for a long time. Hardware will cease to become important as it becomes more and more commoditised. The network and, more importantly content will be the real selling point. For example in case of a phone, I’m sure the hardware for making and receiving calls/data is fairly standardised. The reason we are excited about the Google phone (or the iPhone) is we expect the User Interface and the Apps that will be packed in would be great.
Similarly, this development is also about convergence – availability of content, software, apps will be ubiquitous and on demand, anywhere, anytime. Note the speculation that the Google phone will NOT have any storage. All data and content, even apps will be served from the network.
I might be going overboard here, but don’t these toys make life worth living? 
