Nexus One. That’s the name of the long-awaited, much-hyped, overspeculated Google phone that is coming to market. In what appears to be a deliberate leak, Google employees started tweeting during the weekend about testing a new Android-based mobile device.
The tweets were followed by a Google Mobile Blog post. In the blog, Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management for Google, explained the search giant’s “dogfooding” concept, the process of employees testing products for feedback, and suggestions that will improve a product.
“We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe,” wrote Queiroz, who declined to share specific product details.
Freedom of Wireless Choice
Despite Google’s mysterious stance, The Wall Street Journal reports the company plans to begin selling a smartphone to consumers next year. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported that the Nexus One, built by HTC, was designed inside Google and will be sold without a subsidy from a wireless partner, a dramatic departure from the way the industry typically operates.
Mike Disabato, a senior analyst at the Burton Group, responded strongly to the news. He said he would trash his iPhone to buy a Google phone because it will give him the freedom the iPhone can’t on AT&T.
“When I go to Europe, I can actually put in a European SIM card and drive down my phone costs, because now instead of being a slave to AT&T’s crappy service and soon-to-be-increased rates, I can go to T-Mobile and take my phone and my data with me,” Disabato said. “This severely bends, folds and mutilates the business model that’s existed forever between…