Google's phone out by next year

Called the Nexus One, Goolgle’s new phone runs on its own software, Android. It has been made by World’s third largest mobile phone maker, Taiwan’s HTC, but unlike other Android-powered phones in the market, Google has been a part of every small hardware and software decision that was made.

According to those in the know, the Google phone has a high-resolution OLED screen, a trackball, and is “like an iPhone on beautifying steroids”.

Google’s attempt at “dogfooding”
To test their product, and bring about improvements and changes, Google has provided the current model to its employees and plans to take a feedback from them, a process Google calls “dogfooding”, from “eating your own dog-food”.

Mario Queiroz, vice president of Product Management in Google said, “At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding.”

He also added, “We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android.”

No news or reviews of the phone have been released yet, since the research is only meant for Google employees. But tweets from Google employees called the device a “Google phone”.

Google takes a major risk
Most of the mobile phones in the U.S. have tie-ups with carriers who forward their phones with their own services. But Google is taking a highly novel, but risky approach to distribute its smartphone. The Internet search behemoth will not be getting into collaborations with any carriers, but will sell the device itself. The customer has to buy a sim on his own.

While this step is being hailed and criticized at the same time, it makes sure that one can choose one’s service provider, and there are no hassles with the Early Termination Fee (ETF), which has been in the news recently due to Verizon. Trust Google to support and respect consumer choices.

This move will definitely make things tense between the Internet giant and service-providing companies like Verizon and Sprint. AT&T is quite satisfied with being the sole distributor for Apple’s iPhones.

Analysts have declared that the aim is not to gain profits from the direct sale of hardware, but to get access to important consumer data which can be used to sell ads.

Android has recently gained a lot of attention from mobile phone makers, like Motorola and Sony Ericsson. IDC, a well-known research house, has declared that the market share of Android has seen a leap from 4.2 percent to 5.4 percent in July-September in Western Europe, which is a very important market for these companies.

Android had been devised by Google about two years ago, but the company does not have much expertise in selling hardware.