Google Issues: att and Verizon

Google hopes to do to the mobile market what it has helped do to the traditional Internet: bring people closer to content. At an important level, that means Web apps surfing on a mobile should have a consistent, if not identical experience, as the same operation on a notebook or desktop PC.

In that regard, Google is engaged in a genuine coopetition: it needs legacy carriers as partners even as it competes with them. And every potential partner knows that what is good for Google might not be good for anybody else.

Google already has jumpstarted its effort in a big way, picking up China Telecom, NTT and KDDI, plus Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. market, T-Mobile Deutschland, Telefonica in Spain and Telecom Italia right at the gate. That gives Google carrier agreements Apple and Microsoft never got that fast. And Google's operating system and platform now are global from the get-go.

That means the carrier blockade is broken. Verizon and at&t might or might not join up with the Android effort. But they no longer can stop it.

Of course, Google will proceed on multiple fronts. It won't get where it wants by forcing everybody to use Android. So it will work with carriers when it can, or work around them if it has to. From a stategic perspective, Google wants its apps and experiences on every device, if possible, with or without Android.

Which means some accommodation with at&t and Verizon is possible, indeed likely, at some point. If Android gets traction at Sprint and T-Mobile, not to mention elsewhere, neither of the two largest providers will want to be frozen out of the action.

And that will be true even if Google ultimately emerges as part of a bidding group, perhaps even a winning group, in the 700 MHz spectrum. There are lots of stakeholders who gain if a robust mobile Web experience can be created. Not the least of which are firmware, chip and software providers from the legacy PC space (Microsoft being the salient exception, as it already is a major and growing mobile OS and application provider.

We should preclude nothing at this point, in terms of Google becoming an owner, at least in part, of a major broadband network; producing its own branded devices; getting "top of the deck" exposure on other devices and operating systems or other as-yet-to-be-developed ways.

Google is determined to be a force in mobile and it has lots of ways to proceed, simultaneously. If its gets what it wants, it won't need its own network, devices or apps. Others will do those things. If Google doesn't get what it wants from others, then it will have to consider creating those capabilities itself. Either way, Google in the game for good.

The only unfolding issue is how a complex set of relationships unfolds. Those who want Google to disrupt less will find that their own actions can help tip Google one way or the other. The same holds true for those who might want Google to disrupt more. If they are willing to commit their own capital, they can nudge Google in that direction.

And keep in mind: major technological innovations tend to achieve less in the near term than most think, but far more in the long term than observers expect.