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Google is teaming up with Clearwire, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Intel to build a national WiMAX network. See the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Branding Post for more details.

The new joint venture will retain the Clearwire brand name and Clearwire’s existing consumer WiMAX business. Sprint contributes its network infrastructure and 2.5 gHz frequency allocation. It’s possible this deal will clear the FCC and antitrust regulators, because Google isn’t a major owner in the JV.

Yesterday, a Wall Street journal blog referenced my billso.com article of 18 April 2008 in a discussion about Yahoo and Google’s possible cross-licensing deal. The Clearwire deal is a more direct combination that may help the JV partners lock in consumers, businesses and advertisers.

Too many partners?

I’m reluctant to believe if this large joint venture can actually work. Sprint is the lead partner with a 51 percent stake, and this seems like a desperation move to being acquired outright by Deutsche Telekom or another company.

Pricing and marketing may determine if consumers will pay any attention to this JV. Can Clearwire and Sprint can offer their existing customers some compelling reasons to get some new hardware and try WiMAX? Verizon earns 23 percent of its wireless revenue from data calls on that company’s EVDO and other networks.

Google does need a vast network in the US to support its Android smartphone platform, and the company can’t wait or afford to build it from scratch.

WiMAX would give Google an alternate medium for data service, instead of relying on one telecom carrier as Apple has done with AT&T. Even with 3G service, the iPhone’s data transfer rates will seem slow when the user can’t get WiFi access.

Yes, the iPhone does support WiFi. But I’m sure Clearwire and its partners will market Android phones that support WiFi as well as WiMAX and the sponsoring carrier’s cell phone service, but the battery drain for a typical mobile device user may be a serious problem.

Related posts on billso.com

• 6 May 2008: T-Mobile’s parent may buy Sprint
• 29 April 2008: New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
• 22 April 2008: Android vs iPhone
• 18 April 2008: Antitrust regulators would fight a Yahoo-Google combination
• 18 March 2008: The 700 mHz auction is over
• 28 February 2008: The Google cable
• 22 February 2008: Customer lock-in
• 20 January 2008: Nokia, Sprint announce layoffs
• 9 December 2007: The mobile office in Honolulu
• 12 September 2007: The Google Phone and the iPhone – both looking for software and spectrum
• 27 August 2007: Wireless providers gird themselves for battle
• 14 June 2007: Clearwire signs WiMax deal with DirecTV, EchoStar
• 5 February 2007: Wireless from the inside out

I’ve written about the Google Phone, also known as the gPhone, before on billso.com. Mobile phone manufacturers are starting to test prototypes and prepare an initial wave of handsets for FCC certification, with public sales likely late in 2008.

The arguments among software developers are starting to heat up as Apple gets its iPhone SDK (software development kit) ready to ship, while Google continues to revise its Android SDK. Android is Google’s software platform for smartphones.

On one side, AndroidGuys claims that the first generation of Android-powered smartphones will suffer from quality control problems, incomplete software and bugs. That’s probably true. Of course, iPhone had some initial issues right out of the box, too.

On the other side, droidworks counters with an important difference between the two platforms. Apple’s iPhone is a high-end smartphone that is tightly integrated with Mac software and iTunes.

The Android platform is based on open source software, and is highly scalable. We’ll see more Google Phones in India and China than iPhones, simply because Android is much cheaper to license and easier to deploy with inexpensive chipsets. There will be gPhones from a wide variety of manufacturers. Android phones do not require a full QWERTY keyboard or a touch screen, but the software will support these features if they’re included in the hardware.

Apple, on the other hand, will remain the sole brand for the iPhone.

Related articles on billso.com

• 20 April 2008: Mobile phones - the cure for global poverty?
• 5 March 2008: Today’s battle for tomorrow’s mobile phones
• 20 February 2008: Mobile phone platform wars
• 31 January 2008: Applications are coming for the iPhone
• 13 January 2008: The story of the iPhone
• 5 November 2007: There is no Google Phone - but there is an OS
• 12 September 2007: The Google Phone and the iPhone - both looking for software and spectrum
• 27 August 2007: Wireless providers gird themselves for battle

From Forbes: developers are readying programs that will actually run on the iPhone, instead of just in the Safari web browser. There’s a wide variety of web-based applications available, but these programs don’t offer the speed and features that an application that is actually running on the iPhone could provide. Web-based applications also have to respect firewall and security rules in order to access any Web-based data.

Apple has not released a Software Developers Kit (SDK) that contains tools that help programmers access the iPhone’s resident applications like the address book and calendar.

Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian mobile phones do run applications directly. The operating system developers released SDKs long ago.

Apple has maintained strict control over the iPhone application market through the company’s exclusive agreements with mobile carriers. Carriers either want to sell the iPhone or sometime like it, as I discussed on 13 January 2008. It’s widely assumed that Apple will let programmers sell their iPhone applications through iTunes, which is the management software for iPhone users. Ars Technica revealed that an iPhone application installation key – a very long string of numbers – has been identified by some programmers and released on the Internet as an image file.

Of course, Apple would take a percentage on any software sold through iTunes. The Forbes article mentions 30 percent as a possible fee. As Marc Hedlund pointed out last November, the Sidekick uses a similar business model. As a Sidekick user, I agree with Marc – I hate paying for features on my phone. The Sidekick 3 doesn’t include a world clock, for example. Users have to navigate to the phone’s download screen and buy a clock.

One of the Sidekick’s original developers, Andy Rubin, now works for Google on its Open Handset Alliance project. I mentioned the project on 5 November 2007. Here are some other articles about the rumored gPhone.

There are third-party iPhone applications available, of course. Some of these are designed to unlock the iPhone, or to add an application installer feature.

But Apple can break these unauthorized applications or change the application installation key at any time by updating the iPhone firmware, as I mentioned on 26 January 2008.

Google announced today that they will release a mobile operating system (OS) under the project name Android.

The short story: Google won’t be selling a Google Phone or gPhone. But any device manufacturer can join the Open Handset Alliance and use Google’s software to build a mobile phone.

In the words of Andy Rubin, Google’s executive for the project:

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

Google will provide services that give users access to Google documents, spreadsheets, mail, and other services. In return, Google gains a new way to sell more Web ads, which accounts for a major portion of the company’s revenue.

An open platform makes it easier and less expensive to develop software and hardware for this system, a key point that mobile carriers and handset manufacturers will like. Apple’s iPhone is still more-or-less locked down, which makes it very difficult for large companies to develop their own iPhone applications for employee use. Apple has announced a software development kit for February 2008, according to TidBITS.

Programmers who want to write software for Symbian or Microsoft smartphones usually pay for the privilege.

Some relevant articles on this topic include:

• Wired, 5 November 2007: Google Phone announced as mobile operating system
• TechCrunch, 5 November 2007: Breaking: Google announced Android and Open Handset Alliance
• New York Times, 5 November 2007: Google enters the wireless world
• New York Times, 4 November 2007: I, Robot: The man behind the Google phone
• My articles on the Google Phone
• Business Week, 17 August 2005: Google buys Android

Here’s the official Google video of the announcement form YouTube.

According to a report in tomorrow’s Business Week, developers are building applications for the Google Phone. I mentioned the gPhone on 27 August. This 6 September article has additional details.

Of course, everyone has signed non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and Google management is doing its best to dispel these persistent rumors of a web-centric Linux-powered mobile phone.

Google and Apple have a fruitful partnership, as I mentioned on 21 June. But the mobile communications industry keeps growing, and Google needs new ways to increase its advertising revenue. The gPhone would provide a great opportunity to create a mobile advertising industry.

Google seems to building a platform that programmers can use to easily build mobile applications, with plenty of hooks into Google services like Gmail, Google Maps, and the Google Search engine.

If Google does open up this application programming interface (API) so that programmers can build true mobile applications that run on the gPhone and tap the Internet, it will be much easier for developers to distribute their gPhone software on the mobile Internet.

Compare this scenario with the Apple iPhone, which restricts developers to web-based mobile applications. Apple likes to lock down their hardware to keep it stable and secure. AT&T, like any sensible mobile carrier, wants to keep its network secure and free from rogue applications. It’s a classic walled garden.

The closed software model works for the iPod, but it remains to be seen if customers will tolerate a closed iPhone. Corporate customers want to add their own software to the iPhone, of course, but it’s so much easier when the API is open and available.

Google and Apple are each looking at the upcoming FCC auction for the analog television spectrum. Business Week speculated on their plans in this 10 September article. The winners of this auction would control a nice range of convenient, unused bandwidth in North America after television stations switch to HDTV transmission in early 2009. That spectrum is a great place to build a national mobile telecommunciations network that’s independent of the mobile phone carriers.

Given Apple’s closed model, it’s easy to guess that an Apple mobile network would feature Apple hardware, software and services, with Apple calling the shots on pricing.

Google, on the other hand, looks more likely to let multiple hardware vendors build compatible devices for the gPhone, and let software developers write the applications, as long as Google services are easy to bundle and use.

Building a new national mobile network would be an expensive proposition, especially as Sprint continues to plan its WiMax strategy. See this 28 August article and this 7 September article, both on Engadget, for more details. Clearwire, the current leader in WiMax deployment, continues with its national plans, as I described on 14 June. However, Clearwire stock took a beating Monday, as its joint work with Sprint hasn’t impressed investors yet, according to a 10 September report in Forbes. This 19 July Forbes article has some additional background on the Sprint-Clearwire national WiMax network.

WiMax makes sense for laptop users, because a laptop battery can deal with the radio modem’s power requirements.

Mobile phones need small batteries, however, and the analog television spectrum is an ideal place for residential wireless connectivity. If I were running a landline telephone company, I’d be worried.