According to a report in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow, it would appear that Google is ready to announce their plans regarding the so-called "gPhone" within the next two weeks. The search company plans to announce that it will produce handsets along with Taiwan's HTC Corp and LG Electronics, according to the Journal's "well placed insiders."
The Journal reports that the release date on the device will be mid-2008. While Google does not officially have any deals with carriers, they are apparently getting the most traction with T-Mobile USA, Orange (France), and 3 (UK). As previously rumored, the phones would come with an "open" Google operating system, and many popular Google applications already installed, including Maps, YouTube, and Gmail. By making the OS open source, the company would enable developers to build applications specifically for the mobile environment, the same way they have done with most of their Web services. Google would monetize the gPhone primarily through advertisements.
I have a call in to my inside Google source (whom The Register dubbed somewhere along the way "Deep Throat"), but he hasn't returned any messages, and of course official sources have consistently returned the "no comment or speculation on industry rumor" line. I spoke to Deep Throat last week, and the details of what the Journal is saying is consistent with what he's told me several times in terms of what the gPhone aims to be, although the feeling was from my friend that the release date might be getting pushed out further.