OMG! Did you hear – Google has a phone

Even though the speculation over Google’s Nexus One smartphone has been rampant for sometime now they officially announced today their jump into the smartphone world – something that they said for years that they would never do.

It didn’t matter where you turned today some blog somewhere had their spin on the news and while there were a few negative voices concerning differing aspects of this newest entrant into the smartphone world the over all response has been positive. If you’re interested in the technical brass tacks of the Nexus One then Gizmodo is probably the best place to head to. When it comes to an honest evaluation of the smartphone then I would suggest that Om Malik at GigaOM has the best post.

All the rest are just a variation of the fawning over cool stuff and really after you’ve read one Nexus One post you’ve pretty well read them all.

But you know what?

For all the talk about Google shaking up the smartphone industry and putting the consumer first when all is said and done the Nexus One is just another iPhone wannabe competing with thousands of other wannabes. As much as we all might of hoped for some sort of miracle in the announcement of the Nexus One it turns out that the wireless broadband providers will still being conducting the same old business when the sun comes up in the morning.

There is nothing earth shattering about the Nexus One. We are still going to get screwed by the wireless providers. It doesn’t matter that at some point you’ll be able to slip in a SIM card from a provider of your choice – probably one that isn’t screwing you over as bad as the other company … for now.

As Tom Foremski pointed out in his post about the Nexus One – if Google really wanted to shake up the smartphone world they should have started their own telco instead of foisting yet another pointless cell phone on us.

Google needs to have its own Telco service more than it needs a phone. Or, to quote @shitmydadsays, “Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it you just bought it. Anyone can do that.”

A phone is nothing without the network, anyone can spec out a phone and have it built.

Google needs its own wireless Telco business because otherwise it risks being blocked from the mobile Internet — the fastest growing ecommerce sector.

Whoever owns the wireless connection has tremendous power.They control what applications and services run on the wireless network.

Another take on how Google could have been a disruptive force comes from Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM

If Google can help build devices that can roam anywhere, across a variety of networks, including Wi-Fi, and can push carriers to find another way to authenticate people on their networks without sacrificing security, then they could release a device that could be just as disruptive as the iPhone.

The reality is that there is nothing new to come out of Google’s cozy little get together this morning that isn’t already being done by other smartphone makers.

So as the old saying goes … move along folks nothing to see here.