Report: Google phone platform due out in mid 2008
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Google will come out in mid-2008 with a mobile phone platform that incorporates a variety of Google online services and lets outside developers create applications, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.The goal is to make Google applications and services as easily accessible on mobile phones as PCs, so that the company can extend its advertising business to cell phones and other wireless devices. Google may announce its mobile platform within weeks, according to the Journal.The Journal&#39;s article, based on anonymous sources, is the latest of multiple reports over the past six months or so about Google&#39;s plans for the mobile market.Although at some point it was speculated that Google might be involved in the actual&#160;manufacturing of phone hardware, that rumor is now discredited, as Google is expected to focus on developing mobile software.For Google, it&#39;s critical to replicate on mobile phones the success it has had on PC-based online advertising. After years of unfulfilled promises, mobile advertising will boom in coming years, as people spend more time using the Internet via their cell phones.The Kelsey Group recently forecast that mobile search and display advertising in the U.S. will hit $33.2 million this year and grow at a compound annual rate of 112 percent through 2012, when it will total $1.4 billion.Kelsey Group also expects the number of mobile Internet users to grow at a 20 percent compound annual clip in the U.S. through 2012, when there will be almost 92 million people going online via their cell phones.Worldwide, mobile ad spending is expected to reach $1.5 billion this year and grow to $11.3 billion by 2011, according to market researcher Informa Telecoms &amp; Media.Google is far from alone in its interest at pursuing this emerging opportunity in the mobile market, where all major telecom, online publishing and Internet players are jockeying for position.Of course, delivering online services and applications via mobile phones isn&#39;t as straightforward as doing it via PCs. In the mobile market, providers of online applications often have to strike up deals and partnerships with handset makers and wireless carriers.In a recent interview with the IDG News Service, Marissa Mayer, Google&#39;s vice president of Search Products &amp; User Experience,&#160;acknowledged there are specific challenges&#160;to bringing Google services to cell-phone subscribers.&quot;The mobile space is very complicated,&quot; she said.Google has pursued various avenues for making its search engines and other services available via cell phones. It has adapted Google Web sites for mobile browsers, developed mobile applications people can download themselves, as well as preloaded Google software in handsets via formal partnerships with mobile industry players.&#160;
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ARM will demonstrate&#160;Google&#39;s Android&#160;on an early prototype device at&#160;Mobile World Congress&#160;in Barcelona next week, one of several demonstrations of the mobile platform that will occur at the conference, Google said Thursday.ARM spokesman Stuart Gill confirmed in an interview that ARM would be conducting the demonstration of the Android platform, but refused to elaborate.&quot;ARM will be demonstrating Android on an early prototype device to show how the platform works on their processor,&quot; Google spokesman Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail. &quot;There are a number of other companies that will be demonstrating Android on their hardware in various forms at Mobile World Congress.&quot; He would not name the others, however.Schnitt added that Google was &quot;very excited about the momentum building behind the platform as demonstrated by the number of companies that are supporting it with their technology.&quot;Google also released&#160;a link to a video&#160;showing the early prototype device.It is logical for ARM to be developing in the Android area, since it designs Linux-based CPUs for mobile phones, as well as CPUs based on other types of operating systems. ARM is the predominant CPU platform for mobile phones globally, said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates in Northboro, Mass.Since ARM is already building with Linux, it would not be difficult for the company to put Android on top of the Linux in a phone, Gold said. He said ARM might be doing the Android development on behalf of another company, perhaps a device manufacturer.ARM, however, is not listed as one of the founders of the&#160;Open Handset Alliance,&#160;which was led by Google and includes more than 30 companies.Gold said he would expect several manufacturers to show prototypes of phones or handheld devices in Barcelona, either in private suites or on the show floor. Motorola, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, and Samsung Electronics all make phones and are part of the OHA, he noted.HTC and T-Mobile also are planning to offer phones based on open-source Android this year, the companies have said.For Gold and others, the real question is not whether companies can show off products, but whether they will work. &quot;Anybody can show a phone, but how rock solid will it be?&quot; he asked. He expects demonstrations by half a dozen companies of Android devices before July, with phones shipping by year end.A report that surfaced earlier this said&#160;Dell and Google would also show an Android phone&#160;in Barcelona next week. But that report was quickly&#160;refuted by bloggers&#160;and others.One industry insider, who asked not to be identified, said it was unlikely Dell would produce an Android phone partly because it is not in the OHA. But neither is ARM and could be working from the Android developer&#39;s kit, or with another vendor, the analyst noted.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.&#160;
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InfoWorld - The LiMo Foundation plans to release the first version of its Linux software platform for mobile phones in March, with handsets running the software due soon.
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What will tomorrow's mobile devices look like? asks Bill Thompson
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Devices could be available to consumers next year, company says.
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It joins the battle for mobile users with Google.
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Google has decided to become carbon-neutral by the end of the year, announces plans.
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Mobile roadmap 2008-2009 What's AMD got planned for notebook makers and buyers over the next few years? Its plans are broadly known - the 'Puma' platform will be released in 2008 followed by the first 'Fusion' architecture mobile CPUs the following year - but now we can begin to flesh it out a little.â¦
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At the GSMA conference in Barcelona, the biggest buzz is about prototype phones running the Google-backed Android operating system. Although they're little more than circuit boards and screens, these phones -- from a variety of manufacturers -- show how the so-called "GooglePhone" is shaping up.
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Google is working with mobile content providers on a search tool for cell phones.
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British chip designer ARM   will show a prototype mobile phone based on Google's   Android platform next Monday at the Mobile World  Congress wireless show in Barcelona, a source close to the  company said on Wednesday.
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Blog: What's absent from the iPhone now may be added in the near future.
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Japan&#39;s biggest mobile telecom carrier gave its strongest support yet to&#160;Google&#39;s Android platform&#160;on Thursday when it said it is considering a cell phone based on the technology.&quot;We are starting discussions to offer handsets that will have the Android operating system,&quot; said Takeshi Natsuno, managing director of the multimedia services department at NTT DoCoMo.The talks include getting support for I-mode, DoCoMo&#39;s hit mobile Internet service, on the Android platform. Nearly 48 million of DoCoMo&#39;s 53 million customers subscribe to I-mode, so having it on Android will be key to the Google platform&#39;s success in Japan.Android is a Linux-based platform for cell phones that will combine open-source components and include an operating system, middleware stack, customizable user interface and applications.NTT DoCoMo is one of the founding members of the Open Handset Alliance, the group developing Android. Until Thursday hadn&#39;t disclosed what it hoped to gain from its participation in the group, which includes about 40 companies including some of the biggest names in the cell phone industry.&quot;When I look at the prototype, the Android-based handset works really well even on some of the cheaper handset designs,&quot; said Natsuno.Natsuno didn&#39;t provide any specifics about when such a handset might be available. When the Open Handset Alliance was launched last year Google said that it expected the first phones running the software to appear in late 2008.Despite its support for Android, NTT DoCoMo is also working with companies developing rival platforms. It has an alliance with Access, a Japanese software company with which is has deep ties, on the Access Linux Platform (ALP). DoCoMo is working on a &quot;carrier pack,&quot; a set of unique products and services, that can run on ALP, which is intended to be a common Linux platform for cell phones.Natsuno&#39;s comments came at a Tokyo news conference held to detail a partnership between the carrier and Google.The alliance will see Google products and applications added to DoCoMo handsets. These will include the addition of a Google search box on the main I-mode menu page from which users will access mobile and PC Web sites. Google Ads will appear alongside search results. The two companies said they are also planning to bring more Google services, such as Google Maps, to handsets and build in support for Flash video so that users can access and stream content from YouTube.Google will appear as the default start page on mobile phones that feature browsers for the full Internet.The deal is Google&#39;s second in the mobile space in Japan. It already has a deal with second-ranked carrier &quot;au&quot; to which it provides search and advertising services. Number three carrier Softbank Mobile has a link with Yahoo Japan, the portal in which its parent company, Softbank, is the biggest shareholder.&#160;
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The LiMo Foundation plans to release the first version of its Linux software platform for mobile phones in March, with handsets running the software due soon.LiMo&#39;s goal is to offer handset manufacturers an open, hardware-independent software platform that offers a secure environment for downloadable applications.Publishing the code on time is one thing, but &quot;putting handsets into consumers&#39; hands is the most important proof point,&quot; said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation. That will happen very soon, he said.On Monday, the Foundation will publish a beta version of the software&#39;s APIs (application programming interfaces) so that developers can begin writing applications to run on it.The APIs are still beta versions because the underlying software is not yet complete and minor details may change ahead of its release in March, Gillis said.The LiMo Foundation is focusing on phones&#39; middleware, leaving handset manufacturers and operators to choose their own user interface and content applications.That freedom is important, Gillis said, because &quot;the cost of developing the first phone on a platform can be as high as half a billion dollars.&quot;Phone manufacturers may be unwilling to make that kind of commitment to a new operating system if it will also leave them tied to another company&#39;s user interface or content applications, he said.&quot;That&#39;s why Windows Mobile and Series 60 didn&#39;t gain broad traction; suppliers didn&#39;t feel comfortable,&quot; he said.LiMo faces competition from another open platform,&#160;Android, supported by Google&#160;and the Open Handset Alliance.For Gillis, the connection between Android and Google&#39;s content make that another example of a tied operating system.Although the LiMo Foundation&#39;s code is not quite finished, most of it has already been proven in handsets sold or distributed by founder members Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone, Gillis said.Nevertheless, there are some new elements, notably the security model, Gillis said. &quot;Security in handsets is an area that tends to evolve quite quickly,&quot; he said.Since development of the platform began, &quot;there are no major new threats, but it&#39;s about evolving approaches and algorithms that address the security situation.&quot;Although the underlying platform is open, the handsets based on it may not be. The LiMo code includes support for application signing, allowing handset designers or operators to block the execution of unsigned downloads.&quot;The precise rules used for application signing are usually determined by the operator,&quot; Gillis said.However, he said, there are signs that operators are moving away from the &quot;walled garden&quot; they favored in the past to a more open approach.
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InfoWorld - Google's Android software platform for mobile phonesÂ is coming to life in Barcelona with a number of chip manufacturers showing it running on prototype or proof-of-concept phones at the Mobile World Congress on Monday.
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FRANKFURT/LONDON  - British chip designer ARM will show a prototype mobile phone based on Google's Android platform next Monday at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, a source close to the company said on Thursday.
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As first prototype surfaces Mobile phone handsets based on Google's Android platform are due to appear some time in the second half of this year but hackers have already got a cut-down version of the software running on devices.â¦