There is no gPhone, but there is an Android (and Dutch radio)

Hello? It's IT Blogwatch: in which blogland throws up mixed reactions to Google's cellphone platform announcement. Not to mention a new twist on an old story...

Matt Hamblen reports:

Google Inc. and several other technology companies [unveiled] a new mobile platform called Android [Monday] ... The system is expected to yield an actual phone in the second half of 2008. According to Google, Android is "the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices." The internet search firm worked with T-Mobile, High Tech Computer Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Motorola Corp. to develop Android through the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) ... [which] includes 34 companies that want to reduce the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. [more]

Harry McCracken liveblogged the announcement:

it's official: The Googlephone exists. Or doesn't, actually--but eventually, lots of Googlephones might ... Google has a two-point strategy: Apps like Google Maps on phones through handset partnerships [and] a whole new mobile experience, which will come through Android ... First HTC Android phone will appear in second half of 2008 ... it's bigger than any one company--it's about open standards, open brands ... a full-power browser, so you won't have to shoehorn apps onto a phone. If they work well on the Web, they'll work well on your phone ... the name Android came from Andy Rubin's startup which was acquired by Google. [more]

Here's the man of the hour, Andy Rubin, answering a Frequently-Asked Question:

We're not announcing a Gphone ... Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation ... an important part of our strategy of furthering Google's goal of providing access to information to users wherever they are ... If you’re a developer and this approach sounds exciting, give us a week or so and we’ll have an SDK available. If you’re a mobile user, you’ll have to wait a little longer. [more]

Mathew Ingram opens up:

Open cellphones, OpenSocial — it’s obvious that Google sees as its main competitive advantage a totally open (more or less) approach to data of all kinds. Just as it is trying to create a platform for the free movement of social data through OpenSocial, so it seems determined to create an open platform in the mobile arena ... one of the places where we could all use a bit more openness. Right now, the mobile sphere is where the Internet was back in the early 1990s — it’s a morass of proprietary standards and walled-garden content, combined with the most usurious fees since the department-store credit card was invented ... [the] iPhone ... is still a bit like a mobile version of America Online. [more]

But Om Malik is skeptical:

Quite a few large carriers, including Vodafone (VOD), Orange, SK Telecom, AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). Nokia (NOK), and Sony Ericsson are among the handset makers not part of this alliance ... This is one massive PR move, with nothing to show for it right now ... The partners — with the exception of HTC and T-Mobile — are companies who are, in cricketing parlance, on the backfoot ... no phones till second half of 2008 and they want developers to shift their attention from iPhone, Symbian, other Mobile Linux and Microsoft Windows Mobile? [more]

And Carlo Longino agrees:

it looks like Google’s borrowed Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field. All of this is a PR and media manipulation masterstroke. Obviously since they’ve created the “Open Handset Alliance”, other handsets that don’t come out of it must be closed, right? ... handset vendors and operators are primarily interested in working with Google in this space because of its brand. [more]

Dan Frommer lists the losers:

• Palm, Symbian, Microsoft, RIM. If Google's software is any good, mobile OS rivals are in trouble ...
• Apple. Is anyone going to hold off buying an iPhone because they want to see what Google has to offer? ...
• Yahoo! This could have been yours years ago ... Why isn't there already a Yahoo! smartphone with ... Flickr ... del.icio.us ... and your Web portal, accented with Yahoo!-brokered mobile ads?
• Competing mobile ad networks. Unless you're Google's partner, you're the enemy. Ask Yahoo!, Microsoft, IAC's Ask, etc., how they like their positions in the Web search market. [more]

Mike Boland thinks Carlo's missing the point:

This will really open things up in the mobile world and is a true game changing event. Third party application development is currently stifled because of carrier control and the lack of an open uniform development platform. Android will change this. [more]

And finally...

• How the Dutch advertise radio stations
  

Buffer overflow:

• Phil Windley: Defrag: Making Interactions Explicit
• Owen Thomas: Bad Ideas: Dell's $1.4 billion bet against history
• Joel Hruska: Nanotechnology storage breakthrough proclaimed
• Jeremy Reimer: Apple's Leopard Server EULA moves closer to Microsoft's virtual abilities
• Feld Thoughts - The Amazing Openness of MIT
• Andy ITGuy: Why become an IT Security Professional? Part 1
• Tom Foremski: Web 2.0 Is On The Ropes. . . Kleiner Perkins Has Halted Investments

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Michael R. Farnum: No tools for the job and not enough staff makes Johnny a frustrated IT manager
• John Monaghan: Teaching an old dog a new trick
• Mitch Betts: Are you a truly strategic exec?
• Martin MC Brown: What happened to the terminal?
• Frank Hayes: Frankly Speaking: Wishes fulfilled
• Preston Gralla: Why Facebook's future is not so bright
• Don Tennant: Matloff vs. Aron on the loss of U.S. IT jobs to non-U.S. workers
• Shark Tank: It's all about communication
• Douglas Schweitzer: I'll still take my Mac over ANY other platform...period!
• Shark Bait: Laptop Stopped Working

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• PC: RIP, at least in Japan (and Moo!)
• $199 PC from Google/Everex at Wal-Mart (and bizarre bikes)
• Mac OS X scares security spods (and WCC FTW)