During an Android demo this past April, Google’s Steve Horowitz said specifically “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had been forced to make over and over and over again during a conference call held to discuss the OS.

Q: So if this is not the Gphone, when will we see the Gphone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a Gphone. It starts a whole wave of innovation …

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one Gphone, but a thousand Gphones as a result of the partnerships … the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: ………..Gphone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the Gphone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products… if there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android…”

Android, as Google’s calling it, is a complete “stack” of software for mobile phones, backed by a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance. (Interestingly, Verizon, which was rumored to be interested in Google’s wireless efforts, isn’t yet a member.)

“Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices,” Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, explained in a blog post this morning. “It includes an operating system, user interface and applications–all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. … Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.”

The first phones based on Android are expected in the second half of 2008. And no, Google isn’t building one of them, as CEO Eric Schmidt pointed out over and over again during a conference call to discuss Android this morning.

Q: So if this is not the Gphone, when will we see the Gphone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a Gphone. It starts a whole wave of innovation …

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one Gphone, but a thousand Gphones as a result of the partnerships … the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: ………..Gphone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the Gphone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products… if there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android..

Previously:

• Report: Google May or May Not Reveal Phone Project Monday!
• The Mobile Apps Are Great, but the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Dial Function Really Makes It
• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?

In a press conference following Google Analyst Day, company Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin confirmed Google’s plans to bid in the FCC’s upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction, but declined to discuss the mobile-phone strategy that might make use of it–apparently leaving that task to The Wall Street Journal.

According to a report in the publication today, Google will officially disclose its long-anticipated plans for Google-powered phones within the next two weeks. The devices will reportedly feature Google’s standard mobile applications (Maps, etc.) and more interestingly, a customized open-source operating system, which would allow third-party developers to build applications beyond those offered by Google. From the Journal:

The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications–among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email–that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google’s push to make the phones’ software ‘open’ right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware. That means independent software developers would get access to the tools they need to build additional phone features.

“Developers could, for instance, more easily create services that take advantage of users’ Global Positioning System location, contact lists and Web-browsing habits. They also would be able to interact with Google Maps and other Google applications. The idea is that a range of new social networking, mapping and other services would emerge, just as they have on the open, mostly unfettered Web. Google, meanwhile, could gather user data to show targeted ads to cellphone users.”

And don’t forget the mobile commerce element. Google-powered phones might even offer customers a way to pay for goods from vending machines and retailers via text message.

Anyway … The company has approached a number of handset makers and wireless operators about partnering in the effort, which it hopes to bring to market by the middle of 2008.

Previously:

• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?

Because Google isn’t developing a cellphone, it’s developing a cellphone operating system. With it, the company hopes to replicate its online success in the mobile world and give Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS a run for its money as part of the deal. “The essential point is that Google’s strategy is to lead the creation of an open-source competitor to Windows Mobile,” one industry executive told the New York Times. “They will put it in the open-source world and take the economics out of the Windows Mobile business.”

And that makes quite a bit more sense than the idea of Google suddenly leaping into the hardware business with a full-blown Google handset. Better to extend your services and advertising to the roughly two billion consumers world-wide who use mobile devices than try and sell them an entirely new mobile device, right?

Given Google’s well-documented efforts to set up a free Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, we believe the upcoming spectrum auctions could represent a rare opportunity for the company to acquire something resembling an exclusive (licensed) nationwide WiMax footprint, and largely eliminate any access dependency on third parties. As such, we believe Google’s potential involvement bears watching, especially in light of the fact the company has shown little hesitation in delving into the other aspects of networking. Google’s selection of equipment vendors, such as Force10 and Infinera, indicate to us a willingness to embrace leading-edge technologies, and we believe WiMax fits that description.”

–Joe Chiasson, Susquehanna Financial Group, February 2006

This morning Google announced an alliance with Sprint Nextel that will see the two companies working together to bring Google’s search, digital mapping technologies and GTalk chat service to Sprint’s WiMax network, which, once it’s completed, will theoretically allow wireless Web access at speeds and prices similar to cable connections.

The deal follows the announcement of Sprint’s plans to collaborate with Clearwire to build out a nationwide WiMax network by the end of 2008. It also follows Google’s conditional pledge to drop at least $4.6 billion on the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of the 700-megahertz spectrum, which has long been said to be the future of WiMax (with fewer line-of-sight issues and wider coverage and better building penetration).

Coincidence? Or part of a master plan in which Google wins the 700-megahertz spectrum, uses it to help complete the Sprint/Clearwire nationwide WiMax network effort and then announces the long-rumored Google Phone–upending the telco-cable duopoly in the process?

• Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content or services they desire;

• Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
• Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
• Open networks: Third parties (like Internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.

As Chris Sacca, head of Google’s wireless initiatives, notes over at Google’s Policy Blog, “all four of these conditions adopted together would promote a spirit of openness and could spur additional forms of competition from Web-based entities, such as software-applications providers, content providers, handset-makers and ISPs. The big winners? Consumers.”

And don’t forget Google, which sure as Shinola will use that “spirit of openness” to make its applications and AdWords even more ubiquitous than they are now. And that’s the subtext here, isn’t it? Because what Google’s attempting to buy here isn’t necessarily a wireless network, but the assurance that it will be open regardless of who wins the FCC auction. And that’s sure to come in handy whenever the company gets around to finally launching the GPhone and whatever 3G home-base station technology that inspired its investment, rumored to be a significant one, in femtocell start-up Ubiquisys.