Bob Caswell

Will this allow more control on the users side? For example iPhone you must use AT&T as your carrier, and so on. I guess with Gphone, you don’t have to stick to one carrier. The freedom to customize the combinations of applications and carrier for you cellphone is great, I definitely looking forward to see Gphone entering the arena.

the solution to open and closed phones is simple but not without some cost.If Google’s phone is truly open then simply stop using the other phones. Don’t break your contract just stop using it. Have it turned off. Move on. If enough people do this then the other cellphone providers will have a noticeable drop in revenue which a) make them want to make deals and b) maybe start making better products and c) offer better service. I know this means 2 phone bills but it might be worth it to bring the cell phone companies off their high horses.

Industry insiders are further confirming that little known e28 from China will be the Gphone handset manufacturer and Linux software provider. See the article here: http://www.theindiastreet.com/2007/10/chinas-e28-to-be-gphone-handset.html

Nothing i have heard will make a big change to the cellphone industry. You can do most of this already with widely availible phones. I already have gmail,maps,calendars… on my windows mobile phone which comes with a very good development environment and community. As for having an “open” phone. There are lots of those already (they are called unlocked), if google can get the cell companies to sell an “open” phones or price there phone under $100 that would be a market change, but it would also surprise me.

The thing that google can do to change the industry is to allow their phones to seamlessly move from the celular network to a wireless internet connection without dropping the call (ala tmobile). This is the only thing that google might be able to do that will change the cell market.

The majority of the world uses an ‘open’ phone system and it works perfectly well – the US system is a mess.