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Rumors of Google and Dell iPhone Rival
An anonymous reader writes "Speculation is mounting that Google is plotting the launch of a mobile phone in partnership with computer giant Dell.
Senior industry sources claim the two companies will reveal their plans at next month's 3GSM telecoms conference in Barcelona, although Google insiders deny an announcement is due in the near future."
I don't see this happening honestly. Google tends to buy out a company instead of partnership with it. especially after the wi-max fiasco I would see them perhaps buying a smaller smartphone vendor(openmoko comes to mind) and using that.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Competition is Good. We're just at the beginning. (And just catching up to the Japanese!)
Despite this most likely happening right after duke nukem forever comes out, if it does happen, it'll be a great thing to have. Right now Apple needs a rival. If they sit at the top alone with the iPhone, it won't have any incentive to get better. Google is just the company to give them this competition, and Dell's equally enormous resources will surely fuel the hardware side of the development.
Remember the Dell DJ?
Dell is good at selling commodity products to businesses and value consumers. When they try and move up the food chain, they don't do so well, the Alienware acquisition notwithstanding.
...and the Axim is the top currently selling pda from Dell.
Half baked and abandoned hardware - yeah, that's what I really want in a device.
Sorry, but there has got to be a better hardware vendor to choose than Dell for such a venture. Dell consumer is about high turnover and commodity parts that can be changed with the wind when prices fluctuate - not what I want in a phone builder. Doesn't Nokia or Moto want a piece of this kind of action?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The Googell
Anyone with taste? Having said that, I have a HTC WM6 smartphone and it works pretty well because it can connect directly to our exchange server, and has a great slideout keyboard - much more useful than the touchscreen only iPhone (though my HTC device has a touchscreen too of course, makes navigating menus and such far quicker, and should I ever need Remote Desktop on the go then the option is there)
which is totally what she said
Ain't necessarily so.
Specifically, Google has put a lot of weight behind Android. If Google sells an 'own brand' phone - even if it's a Google/Dell own brand phone - then that kills all other Android phones stone dead, because none of the other serious mobile phone vendors will want to be using a competitor's OS. So Google, who aren't stupid, are not going to do this.
This rumour is one of two things:
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Anyone with taste will tell you that experience shows that being tasteful is almost detrimental to the success of anything...
I think Google should partner with a technology company to provide the hardware instead of Dell. Dell has no R&D to speak of. They take off-the-shelf parts, brand them and sell a warranty. This partnership is on a fast train to also-ran city.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
{sarcasm}
But Apple only makes niche market products! The real threat is clearly Windows Mobile...
{/sarcasm}
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
"anything-that-plays-music" is a competitor to the ipod the same way beer is a competitor to wine. you can argue they're diferent classes of beverage, but it doesn't change the fact they're competitors.
just because apple's marketing is way more efficient at creating hype, doesn't change the fact that the iphone has _hundreds_ of competitors that apeal to the "i just want a phone that makes calls" crowd, and bunch of competition on the smartphone area.
one guy here at the office offered me an iphone he brought from US, but i turned it down for a motorola ming, smaller, does everything the iphone does plus more, costs less, there's a lot of homebrew and commercial apps and is not chained to itunes. so yes, the ming IS a competitor. so are the N95, treo, blackbery, etc.
same for the ipod. i only have one because i bought used for less than half the price of a new one, otherwise i would have bought something else.
believe it or not, apple doesn't have a monopoly on cool gadgets.
What ? Me, worry ?
I think most of us would have. Linux has always been gaining ground and improving. While Mac has made a massive comeback by making some real solid tech. MS on the other hand has just sat around making lock out tech and trying to convince everyone that anything MS did not start is a dangerous piece of hippy technology. Saying someone else sucks only works for so long before people start asking questions.
Have you heard of these iPod thingies? You know, the ones that cost more than equivalently specced devices, but just look a bit nicer? The ones that millions of people seem to think are worth it? I certainly don't think they're worth the money, but a lot of people do. Same goes for nice looking cars, etc.
which is totally what she said
Seriously people, this tag is getting massively overused. Dell making a cell phone is not the same thing as, say, implanting neural tissue from a pig into paralyzed children or building robots with machine guns. The worst thing that could go wrong here is that Dell might make a shitty phone and lose money. BFD.
Anyone else who's sick of whatcouldpossiblygowrong abuse, please go ahead and put in a !whatcouldpossiblygowrong into the tags box.
Causation can cause correlation
Google's Android is a great framework, but it has yet to gain substance by being embedded in real hardware. If Google and Dell put their heads together, we might have a complete product. It will probably never outgrow the iPhone in popularity, but I think it will become a success.
Also, because Android is an open framework, we should expect a great number of third-party applications, something that the iPhone currently lacks.
Kind of OT, but could we please stop tagging articles with "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"? Aside from the fact that is stopped being funny after the 2nd or 3rd time, it kind of negates the purpose of having a tag if every single article gets the same tag.
In other news Google becomes the first company to outsource "evil", a commodity assumed only available in the US and parts of China.
My boys will give you the best kind of start, 1400 megatons worth, and you sure as hell won't stop them now.
Does that mean we will stop seeing those annoying Mac commercials soon?
I use to think like that but times has changed for me. Style is more important then features for the most part. There is the need to have Features, style then nice to have features. The more features you have the more features that you really don't use, you may think you will use them but in actually you normally use only 20% of the features that are available 80% of the time. Style is important because it grabs other attentions, not features, and that in a lot of ways is a good thing. It incrases your personal contacts and allows you to get things done easier because the more poeple you know the less road blocks you occure from people you don't. Its amaizing, A person from the finance department walked by my location and saw my new MacBook Pro, Commented on it and then had a nice conversation on what I do etc... Then when it comes to getting your contract reniewed the fact that a person knows your name and what you do makes renewing and getting appoval much quicker. Don't discount the human element to technology, a lot of people like technology and espectialy for geeks it makes an easy conversation starter. It is very helpful. Having a Cell Phone that is non shiny, and plain looking (much like the zune) just doesn't grab people attention. But a Polished iPhone with a glossy glass display with color display glowing really gets peoples attention. And it helps too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
adding a projector into the phone...
as described by Microvision's statement that they are in talks with a major company. Could you imagine a phone with a projector? I sure could... and I want one.
From the grandparent comment: It's not a Mac vs Linux thing -- as the poster above states, there are very successful Windows Mobile phones that are doing a much better job at business applications than iPhone. Blackberry and Palm are sort of run-of-the-mill these days and don't offer much more than a normal Internet-ready phone. Exchange integration is the big thing -- everyone wants their calendar anywhere, even if they don't have Internet access.
One thing I'd really like on the iPhone is a grdesktop client and ssh client. Exchange integration will make the iPhone widely accepted by businesses running Exchange, but IT guys need their tools too.
I think the iPod's success is more to do with the user interface than the form factor.
It doesn't look that different to other mp3 players, but the incredibly simple and intuitive interface made it accessible to millions of folk who would not have put up with the UIs of other portable media devices.
does everything the iphone does plus more
No wifi and lack of sufficient internal storage, yet you can claim that? It's a competitor, but it doesn't do everything the iPhone does.
If I search the contact-list, I might get 100,000 matches.
Most of the Windows phones look so similar that they are primarily Windows phones with MS-brand images being larger than the manufacturers logos etc(Ooh look! A Windows phone, I wonder who makes it). The MS/Windows brand is the strongest brand on these devices.
The first one or two Android phones will get a lot of reflected Googleshine, just like the launch of the first few MS phones.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
When I look around on the market, there simply aren't many companies that could rival Apple when it comes to designing with the user in mind, i.e. useful, easy to use, sleak and nice, with just about the right feature set (80%, you never please everyone entirely).
:-) )
Nokia, Siemens, Motorolla - they all suck in the useability department. Most of them suck hard and long.
Dell, HP, Palm - useability ok, but the feature set is never quite right
Google - interface ok, useaful, but thrives too much on hiding things (how many of your non-geek friends now even a fraction of the cool things you can do in the Google search input field?)
The only company that comes to mind as comparing to Apple in the design department is Nintendo - and I'd be more than surprised if they came out with a mobile phone ("DS+Talk" ?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I won't say "dying breed" because there will always be people inclined to take function over fashion, but anyone in marketing will tell you that style, more than function, brings in the green. Function appeals to a niche market.
Incidentally, I purchased a Zune last month. Still a little sore over Apple's treatment of third party developers re: iPhone... (which is an even rarer take than function > style)
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Nope, doesn't sound right. Google is not coming out with a gPhone jointly developed with Dell. Otherwise, they'd be competing against their own customers.
What might be happening is that Dell is designing a phone based upon Android (like many other hardware vendors will be doing). Google may be giving them some technical assistance since --if the reports are true-- Dell would be one of the first vendors actually building a phone based upon Android.
It's like saying my company and Microsoft are jointly developing a new project because I'm using VisualStudio, and I have a support contract with Microsoft.
Now, whether the new Dell phone will fly is another question since all hardware manufacturers still need to have tie-ins with some cellphone service provider. If Dell is creating such a phone, we can count Verizon out as a possible cellphone service provider since they refuse to have anything to do with Android.
Wonder how the 700Mhz auctions are going...
I agree w/ above. Google bringing out a Goo-phone wouldn't make any sense, business-wise. Creating one would directly conflict with the goals of it's Android platform. Google stands to gain much more by staying on their hardware-independent path and profiting from the software.
Come to think of it, Dell manufacturing/re-branding a low-end smartphone would seem to fit with their existing strategy. Much like their PC segment, they could sell the device cheaply and make money selling high margin accessories.
I wonder if the battery will explode while I have it against my ear?
brian botkiller "Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance" - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash