It looks like we won’t be phoning home with a Google mobile anytime real soon. A top Google executive has denied outright that the company is developing a mobile phone.

Last week the rumor mills were working overtime after a Google official speaking in Spain said that the company was investigating offering a mobile phone and British phone analyst, Richard Windsor, claimed that during CeBIT Google staff confirmed that a Google mobile phone was being developed.

However, it seems that the Google mobile phone rumor has finally been nipped in the bud.

“We’re not doing a mobile phone, I’d like to find something that is broader, rather than do yet another mobile device,” Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, told Bloomberg.

Eustace said that Google won’t focus on individual handsets.

“Right now it is very difficult for companies to deploy applications. Mobile is a space where it’s very difficult to reach a lot of users. That’s a premise we’re thinking about,” he said

Instead, Google wants to reach a larger number of users by continuing to work with mobile phone makers like Motorola, and service providers, like Vodaphone.

Just as well that Google isn’t building a mobile phone.

Building a successful mobile phone is just as much about distribution as it is about about developing a piece of hardware.

At this stage it’s not even clear that Apple, and its uber-cool iPhone coming in June, will have what it takes to make an impression against the existing mobile phone players, all of whom are no doubt working on their own iPhone killers.

To give you an example of some of the resistance that the iPhone is facing at a distribution level, an Australian telco executive absolutely rubbished the iPhone, telling Apple it should ”stick to its knitting”. Given the highly competitive nature of the mobile phone market, it seems that this is an approach that Google is wisely taking.

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Related:

The Google Phone: 5 facts

Watch TV on your 3G mobile

Could the Google phone be the ultimate Microsoft killer?

Google Phone not rivaling iPhone but set to take on Windows Mobile

Google Phone rumors circulating again, no denials this time

Stumble It!

Entry was posted on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 at 1:21 pm under Google, Mobile phones.  Print

Read more entries by John Pospisil.