Google gPhone is Really an Android - Getting the Players Together
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I’ve already pointed to one potential reward of the open mobile interface. The reduction in the amount of time and money it takes to develop mobile applications will free those resources to make more applications. Developers will also have the time they didn’t have before to make their applications better.
But Google will have an uphill battle. The list of 30 or so companies that signed up as part of the Open Handset Alliance is as notable for the companies that aren’t on it as for the ones that are. Despite rumors of productive negotiations, at the time of this writing Verizon is not part of the alliance. AT&T, having grown recently from the purchase of Cingular, is also not on the list. Among the handset manufacturers, Nokia is conspicuously absent.
On the other hand, Sprint is a proud founding member. T-Mobile also signed up as part of the alliance. And while the world’s number one cell phone manufacturer is not a founding member of the alliance, Motorola is.
If you think about it, it makes sense that some of the top names in their respective fields haven’t signed up yet, especially the cell phone carriers. “Google’s agenda is to disaggregate carriers,” explained Dan Olschwang, CEO of JumpTap, a provider of search and advertising services to several mobile phone carriers. The most prominent carriers will not be comfortable with giving up power. But Google may need these major players to make the alliance work. It will have to do some pretty sharp negotiating to get them on board.
If Google is lucky, the pressure to join the alliance will be coming from multiple directions. If consumers like Google-powered phones, they’ll want them regardless of the network they’re on – or they might switch from other networks to get them, as some 40 percent of those who bought the iPhone did. Richard Doherty, director for consulting firm Envisioneering Group, noted that “No one wants to be the last carrier to endorse Google.”
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