“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.]