Google’s Android to Premiere on a Dell?

Posted by Joshua S. Hill

January 31, 2008

It wasn’t all that long ago – look back to November 5, 2007 – that Google finally unveiled what it hopes will be its iPhone killer; and it looks like they have a winner. At least, that is my definition of a winner; a powerful and financially safe company backing a top product and surrounded by many powerful partners.

For those unaware, Google is working on an operating system that will eventually run on many phones, allowing access to the internet, and all of Google’s apps. It has a wide variety of features ranging from the normal messaging and med ia support to new and advanced versions of browser and Java support.

But more than being just a great product, Android already has the backing of some of the world’s largest cell-phone manufacturers, operators and companies. Names like LG, Motorola, HTC and Samsung are backing it with their handsets, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm are backing it with products.

But even more than that, they’ve lined up some of the world’s biggest service providers; T-Mobile in Europe and the US, Spr int in the US, Telecom Italia, Telefónica in Europe, Africa and Latin America and more.

All of that being said there is one company that hasn’t been named, and hasn’t even shown up on the radar until now; Dell.

And according to Marketing Week, Dell and Google have jumped in to bed and are close to revealing their product of their union. According to the article, which bases its news on “senior industry sources,” the two are collaborating on a handset.

Predicted to launch as early as February at the Mobile World Congress, the handset has very little information surrounding it. And it wouldn’t be a total surprise, considering Dell’s somewhat unsuccessful first step in to the world of PDA’s. Walking in again with Google on their arm adds not only credibility, but expertise they had been missing.

Add to that the recent addition of former Motorola mobile chief Ron Garriques who has taken a position in Dell’s hierarchy, and you’ve got a lot of circumstantial evidence.

One more extrapolation can be made once you look at Dell’s recent track record. They have slowly been shifting away from a dependency on Microsoft; and by slowly, I mean glacially slowly. They have released home computers installed with Linux, a move that not only surprised experts, but Microsoft as well.

And with a greater industry shift away from reliance on Microsoft already taking place across the board, Dell’s possible decision to get in to bed with Google makes perfect sense.

From my own perspective, as someone looking for a new phone, this is good news. For a long time all I was focused on was wanting to buy an iPhone the moment it hits Australian shores. But with the announcement of Google at around the same time that Apple decided to screw over its customers with a $200 price drop on the iPhone (screw over those who had already bought it, not the ones buying it), I started to think.

Add to that the fact that Dell is an industry leader in laptops and PC’s, a name to be trusted and relied upon, and I’m definitely thinking otherwise. Why buy an iPhone – a phone that is so locked down, expensive and empty of features – when a name just as big as Apple, Google, could provide me with an alternative.

I’m not going to be the only one thinking this either, with many people trusting the name of Google over the flashy Apple. But all of this is only speculation, and time will have to be the judge of any of our opinions.

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