14 DAY TRIAL // Search engine giant Google has been rumored a few times before to plan coming to the market with a handset developed by itself, yet it seems that the company has now stepped up and denied those sayings. Google is not into the phone-making business, according to Andy Rubin, head of Android development.
“We're not making hardware,” is what Rubin stated, as Cnet indicates. “We're enabling other people to build hardware.” Rubin's sayings follow the recent rumors that Google would be planning the launch of its own Android-based mobile phone, and that the said device would be set to come to the market before the end of the ongoing year.
Google is already known to have had something to do with the development of previously released Android-powered mobile phones, such as the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1), yet appears that the company's implication in hardware development will not go beyond that. It seems that designing an entire phone, and bringing it to the market would mark “a fundamental shift” in Google's approach towards the mobile phone market, something that it is not ready to make at the moment, according to Rubin.
What Google seems to have in mind when it comes to mobile phones is what it already does: volume licensing and a close work with handset makers and wireless carriers for the larger availability of the Android operating system around the world. Basically, this is the same approach Microsoft said a few times before it takes when it comes to its Windows Mobile platform and manufacturers and carriers around the globe.
Apple is the only company that delivers both the hardware and software in a single package with its iPhone, and it appears that Google won't follow the same route. For what it's worth, the Android operating system has already started to prove very successful, and has seen a number of new versions launched on the market, the most recent one being Android 2.0, which will make an appearance on Verizon's Motorola DROID as soon as November 6.