Remember those rumours about Google getting into the handset business with its own mobile phone? The arrival of the iPhone should have finally put paid to that kind of talk – Google couldn’t dream of out-doing Apple, and is right to focus instead on trying to be the killer app (the maps and YouTube features on the iPhone are surprisingly effective.)
Google’s phone strategy goes deeper than this, though, and could eventually put it in conflict with its new ally. Today brings confirmation of the reports that it has acquired GrandCentral Communications, a private company whose software is designed to simplify communications across multiple devices. Among the features: a single voicemail box that links your home, work and mobile phones, and a single number that can reach you wherever you are. Some of its features, like sending you an email when you get a voicemail message, sound very close to the sort of things Apple is doing with the iPhone.
Steve Jobs has said that, for all its high style, the real secret sauce in the iPhone is the software. Apple is out to make it easier to manage your digital content across multiple devices, putting the iPhone at the centre of a wider corporate strategy. In its own way, Google is trying to do the same thing – though unlike Apple, it wants to play in a bigger ecosystem that stretches beyond hardware choices. Eventually, these visions are set to collide.
