Google Phone to be Introduced Next Week
In Miguel Helft’s tech blog for the New York Times, it was announced today that T-Mobile will be unveiling details of its new, highly anticipated, Google branded mobile phone next week in New York — on September 23, to be precise. The phone will be the first to utilize the Google Android application.
The phone itself, which is being manufactured by HTC, is not likely to be available until next month. But top executives from Google, T-Mobile and other companies are expected to unveil details about the phone’s release date, pricing, plans and software at the press conference.
The phone is expected to become a challenger to other high-end phones like Apple’s iPhone and the BlackBerry line of devices made by Research In Motion. Other manufacturers and cellphone carriers are expected to introduce Android-based phones in the coming months.
Google is promoting Android phones as a way to ensure that its services, as well as other services that may use its advertising system, are available on a broad range of mobile phones. But Google also stands to benefit from the popularity of devices like the iPhone, whose PC-like Internet browser has greatly increased the likelihood that its owners will conduct Web searches on their phones.
Google also (probably) stands to benefit from a general sense of dissatisfaction with iPhones among the business community. Although Apple has eased that discontent a bit with the latest release of the model, there’s still a big potential market there that’s looking for an alternative to the consumer-oriented iPhone and the limitations of the BlackBerry (which is often said to have a browser that’s inadequate for high-powered business applications).
What do you think? Are you eagerly awaiting an alternative to your iPhone and/or BlackBerry? Are you anticipating this new phone, or do you think it’s unecessary? (And is anyone else starting to get a bit nervous at the prospect of Google dominating yet another product market?)
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