GPhone Update: “Not in the Works”

A report from the “wireless news desk” on the Wireless Business & Technology Web site claims that Google has no intention to introduce its own “gPhone.” According to the report Dr. Peter Norvig, who has served as chief technology officer at Google for over a year, told “journalists in the UK” that the major issues absorbing Google’s resources, investment and creative energy are “machine translation and speech recognition, computer vision and face recognition, team recognition and so on.”

The bottom line, which should be a surprise to nobody, is that Google is a prototypical software-as-a-service company with very little interest in getting into the hardware business. Like the rest of us, Google knows that the biggest opportunities for e-commerce and Web 2.0 lie in mobile computing and mobile applications. Overcoming the shortcomings of low-end wireless phones, less than optimal wireless data speeds and strictures applied by a community mobile network operators who are reticent to innovate and share the wealth are its challenge.

Google’s stated position is that of “neutrality” – and it’s sticking by it. In the coming quarter, AT&T Wireless will claim to reap significant benefits from its relationship with Apple. Indeed, the sale of one million iPhones linked to the “new” AT&T Wireless network will come at the expense of some other carriers. I’m sure that Verizon Wireless would like to benefit from a gPhone to counter AT&T’s iPhone, but that has now become less likely.

Yet other analysts and industry insiders have seen the device. They know that HTC will be the manufacturer, Linux will be the operating system and “open” will be its hallmark. It is much more likely, now, that a “neutral” Google software product will make the effort to support as many phones as possible and that means GOOG411 will co-exist with multiple flavors of Google catered to the small screens that appear on wireless phones.