The recent months caused Google’s stock to jump from around $500 per share to just over $700 per share. The reason? Tech and market analysts are predicting that in the coming weeks Google will announce its dive into the cell phone market. While most initially expected Google to produce its own handset, many are now predicting that it will be a simple mobile operating system (OS) instead. The OS is predicted to seamlessly incorporate Google Maps, Youtube, Google search, Gmail, and other Google applications into one device.
However, the questions still remains: which carrier will allow Google to load their OS onto their phone? AT&T seems like the most likely option, but they also seem to be still riding on the heels on the Apple’s iPhone only 4 months after its debut. The second biggest carrier (and perhaps most reliable), Verizon, seems the least likely to allow Google’s OS onto their phones as they seem enjoy locking down phones with their own OS. In addition, Verizon also tends to alienate many handset manufactures with their non-GSM (CDMA) network.
The Wall Street Journal’s Amol Sharma seems to believe mobile carriers will want to engage in profit sharing from Google’s lucrative ad business. This seems to the reversal Apple’s supposed profit sharing with AT&T in which Apple gets a cut of AT&T monthly iPhone charges.
While Google is an innovative company, Google’s web-based applications (aside from Gmail) have not caught on as readily as once thought. In my opinion, there are very few people who decide to use Google’s web-based word processing over hard drive-based word processing software. Nevertheless, I feel that part of me wants to believe the future of computing could be hard drive-less computers in which everything is stored online. Whether the climate is right for a such a move remains to be decided. However, if any company can do it, it would at least start with Google. The mobile market might just be the way to get consumers’ feet wet.
Google is now worth $217 billion making it the fifth most valuable company in the U.S.