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By Jo Best, 14 March 2007 11:25

NEWS

The mobile industry likes nothing more than a good piece of gossip. One particularly juicy nugget of whisper that has refused to die is the Google phone, a piece of mobile kit the search giant is supposed to be working on.

Rumour hounds have been hard at it in recent weeks. Among the evidence used to back up the theory are patents the company has filed on predictive mobile location-based search tech; the blog of one venture capitalist, saying he has been told by sources of a BlackBerry-like gadget in the offing that may be Google-made or run a Google OS; and The Observer's recent report of a partnership struck between operator Orange and Google with a view to producing a branded device made by HTC.

Google, of course, has made no public statement about moving into mobile hardware - aside from 'no comment' - but it certainly has seemed to be upping its activity in the area. It has signed deals with Vodafone to offer Google Maps and YouTube on mobile, worked on mobile advertising, gotten involved with far eastern operators and put its software on a number of devices, not least Nokia's Linux tablet range.

Every web giant worth its salt from MySpace to Yahoo! is getting in on the mobile act but are Google's ambitions running a little deeper?

Google has made no secret of its ambitions in the wireless world, telling journalists at the opening of its London GooglePlex that it intended to use Europe's mobile knowledge to make more of an impact in the space.

It's also gone on to strike deals across the world with operators such as Vodafone in the UK and KDDI in Japan which see Google services bundled onto devices. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has even said mobile subscriptions should be given away for free if users are willing to accept ads on their phones - a statement some believe is a sign of the search giant's attempt to capitalise on its search success with a mobile handset.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told silicon.com a handset from Google shouldn't be discounted but added it isn't immediately obvious where the value would be for the Mountain View, California company.

Milanesi said: "Google has so many relationships with different carriers - what more would a phone do for them? What would the difference be?

"I think it's more something nice to have, a box to tick rather than for a specific business reason. It would be an exercise in branding."

Andrew Brown, programme manager of European mobile computing and mobile devices at analyst IDC, believes Google is unlikely to release its own mobile hardware. Instead, the search company is more likely to concentrate on content deals such as those announced last month and tighter integration with open platforms, such as S60 which runs on Symbian devices.

He said: "They've got the richest experience there. People will be knocking on their door anyway, without all this unnecessary R&D spend."

Ben Wood of Collins Consulting agreed a Google mobile does not sound likely. "Making a handset is really, really hard and making one profitably is also tough. I'm struggling to see why at this juncture Google would make a handset. It would be better to get consumers more and more involved with the Google brand on a mobile."

The idea that Google would partner with HTC for the device itself has raised eyebrows. HTC is almost synonymous with Windows Mobile devices, while Google has often shown itself to be more partial to open source - by using Linux servers to power its search, for instance. HTC is also attempting to move away from the OEM model - where its handsets bear the marque of another company - and build its own brand.

Commentators have questioned why Google would create an own-brand handset, which would be likely to end up in the hands of customers of only a few mobile carriers, as opposed to trying to get Google links on all mobiles. Operators have by and large abandoned the walled garden approach for content in favour of a PC-like open model, which favours Google. The question becomes especially pertinent given mobile is set to overtake the desktop as consumers' favoured way of getting on the web.

That's not to say Google couldn't yet make some, as yet undreamed of overtures in mobile.

IDC's Brown added the continuing diversification of mobile hardware types might yet prompt such a move from the search company. "There's the Nokia 6110, a plethora of navigation devices starting to emerge, Linux tablets, different types [of mobile hardware] so I would never completely rule it out - we are often surprised," he said.

Collins Consulting's Wood also suggested if Google were to get into the device game, it would be more likely to concentrate on the wi-fi side of things - perhaps a single-mode VoIP phone optimised for Google services such as Gmail. "When you think about areas like San Francisco where they have metropolitan wi-fi, it starts to make more sense," he said.