Technology website The Register reports that Google has confirmed it is to manufacture mobile phones. El Reg speculates that their motive is to do with potentially large advertising revenues from mobile advertising. Another might be to get a foothold in developing countries (where mobiles are now the commonest form of connected computing). The Register reports it will use Java-based applications and have a Sidekick-style form factor. They also note that Google has been recruiting engineers from mobile companies including Symbian.
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This isn't really a surprise. Well, not as much as apple making a phone.
Google has been making portable java app versions of it's services for a while.
The phone isn't really the important bit. Google could slap a fancy front-end on any HTC or even S60 and call it the GooPhone.
What will be interesting is how they modify their engine to allow you to search from a geographic location, and how they choose what results to serve you with.
Tom
My first thought as a developer: Please, no, not another mobile software development environment...
I understand krisse's "Last Smartphone" vision, and I think it will come to pass, eventually, in a number of years, but in the meantime life will be very difficult for people who will develop applications for mobile phones.
It would be one thing if Google threw all its weight behind its new mobile platform, with the aim to make it the dominating one, as if its survival depends on it, and thus a good chance of succeeding, but I am afraid this will be just one of the many, many Google projects, and maybe not even a very important one.