Still As Life

From - Skype

When I saw the new Skype mobile phone, I thought, wow, this is great! It's due to be in Australia soon, 3's mobile plans are generally pretty reasonable and I use Skype quite regularly on my computer so this would be absolutely perfect!

Beside's all that, I've been looking at getting a new phone anyway seeing as how mine is slowly dying (again) and it really is quite vital as it is one of my main business tools and since I don't have access to a reasonable land line, it is my primary voice communications device as well. I had been planning on getting a PDA, but I have not yet found one I like so this Skype phone is looking pretty promising.

Now I only just hear about this, and then I hear Google are spreading their wings even further and have been producing mobile phone software since their purchase of the company, Android, in 2005.

Apparently the software won't be available until the second half of 2008, and so I will probably need a new phone before then since thats a good 8 months away still, but if I get a new phone in the meantime, this should give them some time to work out any early bugs. I will admit that sure it is helping Google get even bigger and make even more money, and the software is designed with advertising in mind, so why is it that I am interested in this?

Well, sure, it does support Google's gigantic advertising monstrosity. Despite this though, I like Google, I like their services, I like their support, and I have never had an issue with anything provided by Google, not to mention it has always been superior then any competition that I have tried.

That aside, as I mentioned earlier, I have been looking at getting a PDA for my next phone. Most of the PDA's I have been looking at have started to get a little on the more expensive side due to my...pickyness (for lack of a real word). Google's new mobile phone software should help bring this cost down though as they are planning to offer the software for free! This decreases manufacturers costs as they don't have to purchase the software or develop it themselves. So this should flow on and allow them to retail for cheaper.

To my understanding, the software is also going to be based on open code so that anyone can develop applications for it, which means soon enough, there should be everything I need available on it as well.

So I have to say, I definately look forward to seeing how this new Google development turns out in the next year. It should make the PDA and mobile phone market very interesting.

The Sydney Morning Herald have an article about Google's mobile endeavour here.

Labels: software, technology