Rumored Google Phone could impact entire market

Many would concede that analysts have been under an "iPhone spell," attempting to figure out what impact the upcoming mobile device from Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) could have on wireless devices and handsets from Palm Inc (NASDAQ: PALM) and Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM). What they may soon have to consider is what impact a rumored phone from Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) could have on the iPhone.

The Google phone, perhaps a joint effort with Samsung, could look like RIMM's BlackBerry with more Internet capabilities and could be code-named "Switch." Google could also be working with telecom giant Orange and High Tech Computer Corp - which DigiTimes.com reported was working on manufacturing Google handsets - to build a mobile phone with Google software and could perhaps go on sale in 2008.

A post on a blog written by Don Dodge, director of business development for Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) emerging business team, quoted Simeon Simeonov, former CTO of Allaire Corp, on what he feels could be Google's "go-to" market strategy for a phone: "Apparently, Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers by allowing them to minimize subscription and marketing costs. In other words, Google will market the phone online and carriers will fulfill."

With the iPhone, Apple has promised customers a "new era" of media and information, but their no-third-party-software-allowed policy doesn't appear to bring an "open Internet" way of thinking to a device. Should Google go forward with this market strategy, it could really re-invent this type of device, which could be, essentially, a handheld computer, and blow Apple out of the water.

Someone in the mobile industry needs to start thinking "outside the box," and with Google's recent advances in areas like voice search technology and other applications, it might end up being the company to do just that. Even if, as some speculate, Google is investing in only the software side of things, it appears that it has many of the resources needed to reshape the industry.

Then again, on the news that Apple and Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) are looking to work together to make Apple's device compatible with Cisco's business and consumer equipment, as reported by Apple Insider, maybe Apple has some tricks left up its sleeves. Either way, a competition between the two should be interesting, to say the least.