“There is no Googlephone. Last week, at the Web 2.0 Summit conference, I finally got confirmation that Google’s not getting into the cell-phone business. How? I overheard a rep from Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, chatting up a vice president at Google,” Owne Thomas reports for Valleywag. “Now, I know this particular executive is utterly guileless; she wouldn’t lie. And when the Foxconn rep tried to pitch her on getting a contract to make the Googlephone, she replied, flat-out, ‘We’re not making a Googlephone.'”
Thomas reports, “The Googlephone, however, has worked like a charm in two ways: First a threat. The Googlephone was a useful fiction, a way to scare carriers and phonemakers into cooperating with Google, and spook Microsoft into cutting its licensing fees for Windows Mobile… Second, the Googlephone functioned as a fantasy. A very useful fantasy. Like the Apple rumor mill, the cottage industry in Googlephone speculation served as free, crowdsourced market research. Gizmodo, Engadget, and the rest spun countless feature wishlists out of Larry and Sergey’s phone folly.”
Thomas reports, “Too bad it was all for naught. There is no Googlephone, folks. Move along.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike in Helsinki” for the heads up.]
What? No Gphone… Damn…. I guess we have to settle for the Gspot
Wait a minute…you mean that “google” isn’t a magic word that makes amazing consumer electronics appear out of thin air without any R&D;or design or manufacturing know-how?
Huh.
Spoon boy: Do not come up with features for the googlephone. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no googlephone.
i just don’t like the idea of adds on my cell phone. i hate getting random telemarketing calls or text messeges. thank god for no add supported cell phone!
So she denied there was no phone. What did you expect her to say in order to cut the conversation short?
We’ll see. If Google bids on the 700 MHz auction – a Googlephone may emerge.
@G4Dualíe: actually, she denied that there WAS a phone.
Daniel Eran Dilger of RoughlyDrafted has written an interesting article on the “gPhone” that can be perused at your leisure here .
As usual, Daniel, deconstructs, many of the myths relating to Apple and Apple’s contextual universe.
If you have not yet visited RoughlyDrafted, then “do you’re self a favor” and check it out.
And no Santa Claus either?
Googlephone IS Apple’s iPhone!
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Just wait and see!
Out of Larry and Seregy’s butts to Gizmodo and Engadget’s ears!
Bozos,
S.
(MDN Magic word: progress)
Well it looks like MS is working with their partners to get their phones to sell for under $100 dollars. Instead of innovating a win, they will undercut the iPhone. With their limitless profits from their Monopoly, they can afford to sell at a loss to win. As long as the corporate world is stuck with MS Exchange, all these Smartphones will continue to beat back the iPhone…. and MS will probably do anything to keep Apple out of that cash cow market.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=acv_aeW0mey8&refer=us
Microsoft, Facing IPhone Challenge, Plans Phones for Under $100
Aha. Lock it into active directory. Which is tied in to Windows OS, which is a monopoly that owns the business world. Clever.
Forget innovation the traditional way, innovate instead to take advantage of your monopoly!
http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/news/2201753/windows-smartphones-integrate
“Windows Mobile devices are to be integrated with Active Directory, which will enable enterprises to manage smartphones using the same policies and infrastructure already used to control Windows PCs, according to Microsoft.”
If there was a Googlephone, would it dial a sex line if you misspell your contact name?
“i just don’t like the idea of adds on my cell phone.”
Well even the iPhone has a calculator.
Hmm…wonder what’s up with Google’s posturing in the 700mhz auction. I don’t want to sound cynical, but was Google doing that just to create some buzz, and keep their company on everyone’s lips?
Google is a “soft” company … they don’t have a hardware branch – today. So, the lady is part of that “soft” infrastructure. Nobody told her where the gPhone stands in the ranks of the possibilities. And, she knows the announcement is not imminent, that no bids have been requested to date, so … “there is no gPhone”.
Which doesn’t mean the same will be true this time next year. They may be having as many problems with Linux as Apple had with OSX.
Dave
First we learn there is no spoon, now there is no Googlephone.
The errorists are winning.
don’t believe the article on vallleywag. there will be a gphone.
Sometimes the posts of MDN folks sound like the attendees an annual cult convention. How so?
Rep says: “There is no phone.”
Cultist #1: “Of course she said there was no phone! Plausible deniability, man!”
Cultist #2: “Just because there’s no phone NOW, doesn’t mean there won’t be a phone next year.”
These posts also show the cultic penchant for taking the obvious truth and making it mean the exact opposite, straining at every law of probability and context to beat reality into their tiny box. Also, this thread shows the cultic obsession with impossible and/or minuscule events that the cultists blow up into events of huge proportion.
Well so much for the HTC claim that they were making the Google Phone. Looks like HTC was looking to do little Pumping and Dumping of their own stock…
MDN Word: fear As in, fear the markets wrath after a pump & dump.
But jackalopes are real, right?
Busting, I looked back … who is “Cultist #1”?
As for my own comment, that suggests I’m a “Cultist”? Seriously, a basic analysis of the comment using similar logic to what most analysts – tech, political, whatever – use every day.
There is no gPhone today.
There are no plans for a gPhone by the end of this week (or next).
There is no activity external to Google related to them building a gPhone.
None of the above negates the possibility of a gPhone being put out for bid tomorrow, though it suggests otherwise. The “gPhone” that might appear late next year could be a re-branded iPhone, one of several Apple might be planning for … or not. While anything is “possible”, not everything is “probable”.
Dave
@Jubel:
Microsoft may find some manufacturer who will produce a phone with Windows Mobile on it for less than $100, but Microsoft will have to severely cut its licensing fees (which we know Microsoft HATES to do), AND the hardware for the phone will be crap. You can’t produce a slim, sophisticated, quality smartphone, sell it for $100 and make a profit.
Even Microsoft has to make a profit at some point on one or two of its products.
Oh, sorry, Microsoft already makes money on only two products (Windows and Office). The rest are loss leaders (Xbox) or black holes (Zune).
“The rest are loss leaders (Xbox) or black holes (Zune).”
I’m pretty sure those are brown holes.