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Google’s apps are smartphone ready, it’s partnering with cellular carriers, and the company may bid on wireless spectrum. Connect the dots.

Google looks set to be developing its own smartphone, it has been involved in auctions for the next band of cellphone networks, and it has already developed a dozen smartphone applications, including mobile versions of its search, maps, Gmail, calendar, and RSS reader tools.

The company is searching for an executive to head its mobile business development in North America. The candidate, according to the job description, should have “a thorough understanding of the mobile vertical, both from a carrier and a handset OEM perspective.”

Handset OEM perspective? That could be a reference to the rumored Google phone, reportedly to be designed in collaboration with Taiwanese handset maker HTC. Speculation has it that the phone would carry the Google brand and come with Google services and applications, perhaps running on a Google-developed mobile operating system.

Google has been expanding its mobile software portfolio since 2005, when it acquired Android, a developer of mobile phone operating systems. Google’s evasive about its plans for that technology, but the acquisition fueled predictions that Google will develop its own mobile OS, either for a Google phone or to run on handsets from other vendors. Any Google OS would be tightly integrated with the company’s search, maps, Gmail, voice over IP, and other apps.

Google mobile ads–text-based, targeted ads that appear with search results on cell phones–debuted last year in Japan and quickly spread worldwide. In general, users have been receptive to display ads on mobile screens, defying analysts’ predictions to the contrary. In September, Google extended its advertising platform to various forms of mobile content with AdSense for Mobile, software that aims ads at users based on the mobile content they’re downloading.

Google this year waded into the FCC’s planned auction of the last prime frequencies for advanced wireless services. CEO Eric Schmidt pledged $4.6 billion in bids.

Google-To-Go???
- SEARCH Google search for the small screen
- MAPS Gets mobile workers from point A to point B
- DOCS & SPREADSHEETS Downsized documents
- GMAIL A second in-box for businesspeople
- CALENDAR Track appointments by cell phone
- READER News in the palm of your hand
- SIMS Includes set-and-save location feature
- BLOGGER Post from the road

Overseas carriers such as Vodafone in Europe, KDDI in Japan, and China Mobile have agreed to display Google applications and services on their handsets, while in the United States, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile are listed as Google partners, though few details have been forthcoming.

Who stands to lose if Google succeeds? Microsoft, for one. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system is expected to ship on 20 million devices this year. The last thing Microsoft wants to see is an exploding population of smartphone users abandon Office, which also runs on smartphones, for Google’s free, untethered applications.

That’s a real risk. Sea Change Management, a small financial services company, switched last year from Microsoft Office to Google Apps (though it still uses Excel where necessary). The company accesses Docs & Spreadsheets from PCs and smartphones “anywhere in the world,” says managing principal Jason Winship. Employees collaborate using Gmail chat and shared documents.

summarised from Richard Martin’s excellent article in Information Week, here

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 11:27 am and is filed under Google, Microsoft, mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.