D5: Google's mobile platform strategy--no phone, just apps

Every end user computer is becoming a phone with a modest-sized screen, 3G networks, a new generation of browsers, GPS and a camera, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "The sum is a whole new platform play," he said, epitomized by the forthcoming iPhone (Schmidt is on Apple's board). He shares Steve Jobs vision of the great innovation happening on the "post-PC" devices.

Schmidt was responding to a question from Walt Mossberg during an interview at the D conference on whether Google was developing its own phone. He didn't answer directly the question about a Google phone, and said that Google was writing Web-enabled applications, such as for search and maps. "Instead of mobile, mobile, mobile, it's apps, apps, apps," Schmidt said as he briefly outlined Google's strategy for building applications and the required set of service layers for mobile clients and servers. He said Google is already partnering with Japanese companies, such as LG and Samsung, and seeing higher profit on mobile ads because they are more personal. I would guess Google is also working with Cingular to get applications tuned for Apple's forthcoming iPhone.

"In order to write apps, you have to write a mid-layer to federate apps...for infrastructure to host apps and make them personal, extensible and shareable....The new model is phone-to-phone. It's SMS gone wild in a fundamental way," Schmidt said. "The model is not as simple as an OS and platform. It's really a set of services." He said that Google would build some "inspirational" apps, but expects most of the innovation to come from third parties.