Hurdles ahead for Google's cellphone plan

Bringing Internet openness to the closed wireless world is bold but difficult, analysts say.

from the November 8, 2007 edition

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Google will release the actual code next week, but doesn't expect any handsets to utilize it until the second half of 2008. Until more details come out, many developers are cautious.

"The whole idea of branching out to the mobile platform and reaching a mobile audience is new and exciting," says Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, a New York developer of applications for Internet platforms, such as the MySpace and Facebook social networks. "We're interested in building applications over every social network that could make us money. If mobile phones offer that, then we'll be there, but it's too early to tell."

So far, Facebook is the only social-network platform that Mr. Lazerow says has opened up its operating software to allow anyone to make money off Facebook programs that they develop. Today, there are 7,700 Facebook applications.

These thousands of mini-programs range from the handy and useful to the silly and pointless. But sometimes, even innovations designed to be frivolous turn into important new tools. Twitter – the social website that asks users to constantly post what they're doing right now in 140 characters or less – became a key source for decimating emergency information during the southern California wildfires last month.

Before the unveiling of Android, translating Facebook's model to the mobile market place seemed impossible. The big networks would balk; smaller carriers never had enough users to attract many outside professional developers.

"The telcos have fought any opening up of their walled garden because it goes against their survival instinct," says Craig Settles, an industry consultant in Oakland, Calif. "But Google has the muscle to make this work."

The coalition that Google has brought to the table, called the Open Handset Alliance, is an impressive global lineup, most analysts agree.

"This whole move by Google will have a significant impact on mobile users but not for some time," says Charles Golvin, a principal analyst for Forrester Research based in Cambridge, Mass. One big change will be in the way people perceive their cellphones, he says. Just as the iPhone showed a wider audience that full Web capability was possible in a phone, the coming Android devices could spark greater adoption of Internet-ready handsets.

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