Google says it has no plans to build mobile phones
Google Inc. said its engineers are developing software for hand-held devices, and the company
has no plans to build mobile phones.
"We're not doing a mobile phone," Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, said in an interview Thursday at Google's office in Atlanta. During an event earlier in the day, Eustace said, "I'd like to find something that is broader, rather than do yet another mobile device."
The remarks contradict reports on Web logs and online news sites this month that Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, the most-used Internet search engine, is working with a handset manufacturer to develop a phone.
Google, Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are racing to develop mobile products such as e-mail, online maps and search engines to tap consumers that want to surf the Web on the move. Mobile devices outsold personal computers by more than four to one in 2006, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.
“We believe Google is working with, not against Apple in the mobile world,'' Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster wrote yesterday in a note. Google is probably building mobile applications that will work with the iPhone and other devices, he said.
Engineers at Google's Atlanta office work on projects including the Google Earth mapping program and a software tool kit for writing Internet applications. Employees also work on programs to place and track ads on radio, print and television, said Scott Blum, an engineer in the office.
via [ bloomberg ]