Well this is interesting. Rumors of a Google phone have been swirling for months, and I just spotted an article stating that it may be based on the OpenMoko mobile Linux platform. If you haven’t seen the OpenMoko phones yet you owe it to yourself to check them out, they’re very slick and the hardware is 
astoundingly similar to the iPhone (touch screen, audio, Bluetooth), and even does a few tricks the iPhone doesn’t (GPS, MicroSD card). Rumors state that Google will develop their own hardware, but it makes more sense to me for Google to just snatch up OpenMoko and use their hardware as it’s already being developed and tested.
OpenMoko is apparently doing pretty well. In fact I wasn’t even able to get my hands on one, apparently because they’re all sold out:
OpenMoko, the first Open Source cell phone, has sold out the entire planned production run for the device’s developer preview after unexpected demand.
Open phones are definitely a concept worth keeping an eye on. If they catch on, and it certainly appears that they will (open source has a tendency to do that), it could be reminiscent of the Linux vs. Windows war waging right now. A polished, proprietary system with a huge company behind it competing with a cheaper a open system with a ton of developers behind it. Google throwing its considerable weight behind the OpenMoko platform would certainly lend some credibility to the concept and raise its visibility quite a bit.
If Apple is smart they’ll open up their iPhone platform to third party developers before this really gets a head of steam behind it. Otherwise iPhone owners are going to get a nasty surprise when they see a cheaper gadget doing tricks their iPhone never dreamed of, at half the cost.
By the way, one of the reasons I’m most interested in open mobile phone platforms like this is that I think there’s going to be a big shift in the way people think about their phones in the next couple of years. By opening up the platform like OpenMoko allows, phones are able to become a general purpose extension of people’s online identity and become a seamless part of the online experience. Proprietary phones won’t allow this because the maker of the phone and the platform don’t want to allow people to go outside their end-to-end solution (see the way Verizon cripples their Bluetooth to force their customers to download ringtones and pictures for a fee, for example). Once that hurdle is overcome we’re going to see a wave of innovation that uses mobile phones as part of a personal identity platform which will come with many new very cool solutions and applications which just aren’t possible under today’s closed systems.
