The Google-Phone Effect

In the coming months, wireless dealers will be getting a bold new palette of handset options to offer their business customers. For one thing, devices built on Google Inc.'s Android platform, announced in November, should be making their way to market soon, adding another OS option to the already fragmented handset landscape. For another, the ongoing, Google-inspired march toward open access means that devices soon will become agnostic from the carrier networks. Whereas before Verizon Wireless customers had limited choices, soon dealers will be able to offer any number of CDMA-based devices.

The launch of Linux-based Android was met with much fanfare in November 2007. Android is a free, open platform for developers to use in designing the software for handsets. It contains all the components necessary to build a handset (operating system, middleware, user interface and applications). Its launch is notable not just for the big name of "Google" involved, but for its stated intention: to make it feasible to create the under-$200 smartphone, and to enable a new class of devices – perhaps thousands of them – that will natively support the open Internet and usher in an era of applications.

“Basically, it means you no longer have to shoehorn applications in,” says Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. “Anything that can work in a Web environment will work well here, and also on PC or Mac – games, multiplayer, video and audio, social networking, apps obviously useful to the mobile user.” So for dealers, sales opportunities will center on not just the hardware, but a host of applications and software, too.

Thirty-four developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers have come together to get Android-based products to market, calling themselves the Open Handset Alliance. Dealers should note that HTC and Motorola Inc. should both be launching Android-based phones this year. Samsung is also part of the OHA. T-Mobile USA said it will make open Internet applications and social networking available to subscribers based on the platform soon. Qualcomm Inc. will contribute the 7000-series chipset to the project.

For dealers to make the most of the Android development, they'll need to understand where it fits into the handset landscape.

"We are building handsets that are compatible with multiple networks, seamlessly integrated and transparent to the end user,” says Paul Jacobs, CEO at Qualcomm. “The wireless Internet is opening up a lot of opportunities for the entire industry, and it’s time to grow the pie instead of focusing on how we cut that up potentially for a wide number of operating systems and environments to be supported on handsets.”