March 15, 2007 c|net story
A Google spokeswoman in the United States released this statement when asked for comment: "Mobile is an important area for Google and we remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce."
Google stateside has repeatedly declined to comment on rumors of a Google Phone, but the smoke has been rising lately. Earlier this month, Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners wrote in his blog that an inside source told him the Google Phone will be a BlackBerry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap, or loading program, and optimized Java, and that it would offer voice over Internet Protocol.
Google has on its payroll Andy Rubin, the founder of handheld device maker Danger who later started Android, a mobile-software maker that Google bought in 2005. Google also acquired mobile-applications company Reqwireless and secretly acquired a company called Skia, whose first product is a portable graphics engine that renders 2D graphics on handhelds.A March 25, 2007 Slashdot posting pointed to this article :
“We’re not doing a mobile phone, I’d like to find something that is broader, rather than do yet another mobile device,” Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, told Bloomberg.
Eustace said that Google won’t focus on individual handsets.
“Right now it is very difficult for companies to deploy applications. Mobile is a space where it’s very difficult to reach a lot of users. That’s a premise we’re thinking about,” he said
Instead, Google wants to reach a larger number of users by continuing to work with mobile phone makers like Motorola, and service providers, like Vodaphone.