Sprint joins Google’s gPhone alliance

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        By JASON GERTZENThe Kansas City Star
% P/ U, G: N( V, u2 u        Sprint Nextel Corp. missed out on the iPhone. It wasn’t about to let the possibility of a gPhone pass it by, too.
GoogleInc., the Internet search behemoth based in Mountain View, Calif., onMonday gave the world a peek at its plans for the cell-phone market.Those plans were big on promise but sketchy on details.
3 S" t$ w1 g  n2 ZGoogle,Sprint and other members of a consortium of 34 technology companiestrumpeted the creation of a new venture — called the Open HandsetAlliance — intended eventually to make cell phones cheaper, easier touse and filled with newfangled functions.
! y, _7 O9 B$ x9 t5 GThe current system fordeveloping new cell-phone services is often criticized for being socomplex and cumbersome that it slows, if not outright blocks,innovation.
6 ~: h3 H! r; _Google executives and fellow alliance members toutedtheir “open-source” approach as a way to encourage more softwarecompanies to participate, reduce the time it takes to create a newservice and make using advanced features on a phone as simple as“Googling” your way to information on a personal computer.
ButGoogle executives were equally quick to deflate expectations about thepossible imminent arrival of a so-called Google phone, or gPhone.
“Weare not announcing a Google phone today,” Eric Schmidt, Google’schairman and chief executive, told mobile-phone industry executives andreporters from around the world who dialed in to a conference call.
Instead, said Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, “we are enabling 1,000 people to build a gPhone.”
Sprint,Motorola, the German parent company of T-Mobile USA and many othermajor movers have signed up. But other names —including the wirelessindustry’s No. 1 carrier, AT&T Inc., and No. 2, Verizon Wireless —were notably absent from the alliance’s roster.
The news has beenhighly anticipated, generating the sort of buzz that accompanied thelaunch earlier this year of Apple’s iPhone. Many bloggers, pundits andother wireless-industry watchers were certain that Google would counterthe momentum of its fellow denizen of Silicon Valley with a cool newphone of its own.
“Oops,” Jeff Kagan, a wireless-industryanalyst, said after learning that the Google announcement was moreabout software than a single new phone. “We all got it wrong. Way off.It’s not a Google gPhone at all.”
1 W$ S2 x) Z0 Z6 N7 M9 V# rIn addition to some chagrin,the announcement drew a wide range of reactions, from applause for itsvisionary potential to skepticism about whether it would succeed.
1 I- E1 A" x  ]. [“Theyare promising everything,” said Roger Entner, senior vice president forthe communications sector for IAG Research. “The only thing missingliterally was world peace.”
, n4 P0 q$ R. U. ^$ `( y3 BWhile alliance organizers made bigclaims about the venture’s potential, they were far more sparing inoffering specific examples of services or programs they expected it toyield.
, @1 l# ]' t- n) \+ j' F$ ^Sprint executives talked about possibly linking acell-phone address book with an online mapping service. Socialnetworking systems allowing one mobile-phone consumer to identify thelocation of his buddies through the use of Global Positioning Systemtechnology are another idea.
0 i, S0 y: ^; F- O3 W# p! ZWhile difficult to predict, the advances are likely to be amazing, Google’s Schmidt said.
“It starts a whole wave of innovation that we can’t even foresee,” he said.
0 R5 v  v' t: V5 HAsmore consumers have signed up for cell-phone service, and ascompetition has intensified, the prices that companies such as Sprintcharge for calls have tended to drop. Persuading more subscribers tosurf the Internet and use other data services is at the heart of astrategy intended to boost sales and help the cell-phone companiesstand apart from rivals based on the intriguing and useful informationthey offer.