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Partnering with Google has been mostly good for Frank Meehan. He’s CEO of INQ Mobile, a U.K.-based cell-phone maker that next year plans to release a handset that runs Android, the operating system built from the ground up by a consortium of companies led by Google.

Google is lending considerable engineering talent, sort cachet, and marketing muscle to the project. Phones powered by Android are becoming best sellers for hardware makers including Motorola and such carriers as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, the U.S. mobile-phone arm of Deutsche Telekom. Meantime, developers are hard at work not only refining Android but plus building thousands of games, tools, and other applications for Android devices.

Now, Google is weighing a move that might turn it into a competitor to many of those partners. In a Dec. 12 blog post, the search giant said it’s given employees “a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs

on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities.” The device boasts a touchscreen that lets users search the Web by voice, and Google is in talks to sell the phone through T-Mobile USA.

By itself, the prospect of Google marketing its own phone isn’t causing Meehan much consternation. Indeed, a Google phone would raise Android’s profile all the more, benefiting Google’s partners. “I can understand Google wanting to showcase Android to the world,” Meehan says. “If that helps consumers appreciate Android devices, next it’s a good thing for us when we launch later.”

Open Threat

Yet here’s where Google getting in on the act could become a problem. whether Google keeps the best new Android apps and features for its own phone, that would likely upset many of the 47 hardware, software, and chip partners that are part of the Open Handset Alliance, which backs Android. “If…

Original post by dhiram