Google's G1 Comes Out
Posted by
world Jr at Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Elizabeth Woyke and Wendy Tanaka 09.23.08, 12:33 PM ET Winners: Google: The Internet king is betting big that Android will spur developers to build programs that will run on the mobile platform. More programs mean more ads--and that spells more growth for Google. Consumers: They get another smart phone option, and it will be cheaper than other smart phones and the iPhone. T-Mobile: It's the smallest of the big four carriers, so Android could give it a boost. No. 3 Sprint Nextel (nyse: S - news - people ) has also signed on, but AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and Verizon Wireless appear unlikely to follow.
Google unveiled G1, the first in the long-awaited series of Android phones, Tuesday at a press conference in New York with wireless carrier T-Mobile. 
Losers:
Google: If Android is a bust or makes consumers yawn, Google will need to go back to the drawing board.
Apple: If Android catches on, it could become an iPhone killer.
Other smart phone makers: ditto. Research in Motion (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people ) and Palm (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ) could be especially vulnerable if Android has some corporate appeal.
In the fray:
Developers have been hinting that they're less than thrilled with what they've seen of the software so far.
And there's a debate brewing about what Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) is really after with Android. Tech Crunch insists that Google is hellbent on cracking the smart phone market dominated by the BlackBerry and iPhone (see "Tomorrow Is G-Day").
PC Magazine says this: Android's true target isn't the 19% of phones running operating systems, like the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Mac OS. It's the other 81% of phones, which aren't smart phones and run operating systems you've never heard of, like Nucleus and P2K. This large part of the market we call feature phones has become more and more powerful, in terms of hardware, over the past few years. But these brawny handsets are still stuck with software stacks designed for the 20th century.
Source: forbes.com
