Google phone

Mobile biggies are quaking at the idea of competition from a free, ad-based service

Imagine your cellphone as a mini marketing machine. As you head into your car after dinner, a text alert pops onto the screen of your handset announcing the 9 p.m. lineup at a nearby cineplex. You choose the Jodi Foster flick The Brave One and a promo video for the next Warner Bros. (TWX ) release, a George Clooney movie, starts running. Afterward, more text appears, prompting you to launch the phone's Web browser so that you can click through to buy the movie's ringtones and wallpaper.

After the Google phone, Google is developing software to run services on mobile phones.

With all the speculation about a Google phone, incidentally being seen as a rival to Apple Computer's iPhone, there are now reports that Google is, instead, developing software to run on mobile phones.

According to Gene Munster, an industry analyst, Google is developing software to run services on mobile phones rather than building its own phone. This is in line with what several industry sources say.