Want a GPhone? You Have to be a Developer

A UBS analyst has confirmed that Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC will ship about 50,000 cell phones running on a mobile operating system made by Google. The phones are reportedly going to ship by the end of this year. But the phones will only be going to development partners. The move would suggest that Google is more interested in an operating system for mobile devices than making actual devices itself, as most observers would guess, if given a choice between those two avenues as most likely.

But development of the operating system does not preclude the possibility that Google might want to have its own name plate on devices built on the operating system.

“These initial phones are not going to be for sale,” says Benjamin Schachter, UBS analyst.

Orange, Apple Nail Deal for France iPhone Sales

After what appears to be a delay caused by commercial disagreements, Orange and Apple have settled on a deal whereby Orange is the exclusive distributor of the iPhone in France. Under the original deal, Orange agreed to pay Apple 30 percent of revenues generated from iPhones sold with mobile contracts. it appears Apple wanted more, to offset lower margins on phones sold unlocked, as French law requires. There is no public word on how the original deal might have been modified.

Deathstar!

Scott Moritz at TheStreet.com says at&t is gearing up to buy EchoStar fast. The logic is unassailable. at&t wants to get big in entertainment video. It will take a long time to get its entire network revamped to do so. Buying EchoStar puts at&t right into the big leagues with more than 13.6 million subscribers. Competitor DirecTV has about 16.2 million subscribers. So by acquiring EchoStar, at&t immediately vaults into a position where it serves more than 45 percent of the U.S. satellite-delivered multichannel TV market.

iPhone No Big Deal?

At least some observers think iPhone really is not that big a deal. Sure it is. It is the first device to begin breaking the carrier-device-user relationship. To a greater extent than any other device in the mobile world, Apple has started pushing in the direction of a direct handset-user relationship. Google will be next. It IS a big deal.

Gmail Storage Increasing to 6 Gbytes January 4

Gmail will increase free storage gradually over the next several weeks. On October 23, users will get 4321 MB of storage. Storage will continue to increase to 6.283 Gbytes on Jan. 4. After Jan. 4, storage will increase 3.3 MBytes every day, says Google.

Google Apps mail accounts will have the same quota as standard Gmail accounts, while Google Apps Premier Edition will have 25 GB mail accounts. Previously, Google Apps accounts had 2 GB of storage, while the business edition offered 10 GB per account.

Gmail paid storage options also will expand, providing about 50 percent more storage for the same price: 10 GB for $20/year, 40 GB for $75/year, 150 GB for $250/year and 400 GB for $500/year.

Endeavor Telecom Looking for 2 National Accounts Execs

Check out the listing on LinkedIn, Monster.com and Dice. "We are considering individuals who are aggressive, business savvy sales professionals with a history of solid sales success to Endeavor’s customer base: carriers, telecom service providers, manufacturers, systems integrators, and VARs. Endeavor does not provide services direct to end-users/enterprises, so proven channel sales success is required. This is typically a work from home position with overnight travel expected to be less than 20%. Compensation is $120,000 to $250,000+ per year (Base + Uncapped Commission) plus benefits."

Mobile IS Broadband by 2011

Mobile broadband will be the dominant broadband platform worldwide in 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. There will be more than one billion broadband subscribers worldwide in 2011, with the majority using mobile rather than fixed networks.

Mobile broadband will be a "more than" $400 billion service revenues business in 2012, as a result. Of course, getting there will mean climbing a wall of end user resistance to mobile broadband pricing, research by Parks and Associates suggests. That might be especially true if mobile broadband winds up being a replacement for narrowband mobile access, rather than fixed mobile access.

HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) will be the leading mobile broadband technology by then in terms of number of subscribers, followed by EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized and mobile WiMAX.

"Mobile broadband will represent close to half of total mobile service revenues in 2012," says Mike Roberts, Informa analyst.