(By Mayur Pahilajani - iStockAnalyst Writer)

New York, NY - Google Phone (G1) from Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), which was unveiled on Tuesday, is considered to give a strong competition to the latest third generation iPhone from Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). However, Google Phone may not be the revenue booster for the company. iPhone excels the market of technological innovation, and gPhone is just following Apple's step.

Google's offering provides Android operating system-powered phone in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom's (NYSE: DT) T-Mobile. The smartphone will be available from October 22 by T-Mobile at a competitive price of $179 with a two year contract.

Google had been waiting to release a handset that could use the Android phone software, which was launched in November 2007 and promises to allow you surf web while on the move. Android is an open source platform, which means that it is free of charge and no licensing fees. Google will receive a complete software support for its mobile platform from the Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies.

The group has been developing advanced mobile applications for Android. Google said in a statement on Tuesday, "Everyone will be free to adopt and adapt the technology as they see fit. By doing so, we hope that users will get better, more capable phones with powerful web browsers and access to a rich catalogue of innovative mobile applications."

The third company in the partnership include High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC) (TSE: 2498), a Taiwan-based designer and manufacturer of touch phones, PDA phones, smartphones, and mobile computer devices.

The main difference between the two phones seems that iPhone is targeted at common mobile phone users; while, Google expects to attract enterprise customers, developers and, of course, the consumers. Developers can use Android to develop phone-based applications thought its Software Developer Kit (SDK), just like they use open source Linux software for the PCs.

The Google gadget has features including a large touch screen and slide-out Qwerty keyboard, which is a strongest selling feature against iPhone's inapt touch screen keypad. The owner of YouTube gives no facility for playing as well as recording videos. iPhone can play YouTube videos. The Google Phone provides 3G wireless and Wi-Fi access, just like the iPhone. It also has a 3.2 mega pixel camera, an MP3 player, motion sensors, and support for GPS and Bluetooth 2.0. Email, Web browser, calendar and venues of third-party applications are powered by its Android platform.

The analysts are expecting a slow start for Google as it begins selling the phone next month amid its much hyped product. Google will also be competing with Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (maker of BlackBerry), Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), which had captured nearly half of the mobile phone market a year ago.

Google as a parent company has emerged as a strong player in the technology market. It had recently announced that it will diversify its advertising scope beyond Internet and is preparing to enter new markets including television for additional revenue growth. Mobile phone market may be a difficult sector for the company to rely its revenue growth on as it generates more than half of its income from online advertising and search engine traffic.

Shares of Mountain View, California-based company were trading higher on NASDAQ Stock Market trading. At 1:01pm ET, the company was trading up by 2.14 percent or $9.20 to $438. So far this year, the company's shares have dropped by almost 37 percent. The stock has traded between $406.38 and $747.24 over the last year.


Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-android-powered-phone.html