Google, a company founded less than 20 years ago, is one of the largest businesses on the planet today. While their present is bright, their future is brighter. Google is working on plans for driverless cars, Google Glass, and nationwide fiber internet. With all of those huge exploits underway, another project may go unnoticed. There are rumors that Google is working on a flexible, unbreakable cell phone for release in early 2014.
Unbreakable cell phone technology is being researched and developed at Samsung. The Youm uses OLED technology which allows for a clear picture while remaining flexible and shatter proof. Other rumors reported Motorola is working with LG on a new smartphone with similar features – a bendable screen and more durable casing. Images have been leaked online since last December.
Google has yet to acknowledge this X Phone, but Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside, a former Google top sales executive, said in December that the company is “investing in a team and a technology that will do something quite different than the current approaches.”
“Larry Page invited Koo for a meeting while he stayed in Seoul last week. They discussed ways to improve their business partnership. The meeting lasted for more than an hour,” the Korean Times anonymous source said. Larry Page is CEO for Google and Koo Bon-joon is CEO for LG.
The newspaper reports they intend to work together on the smartphone which will be released as the Google Nexus 5. Suspicion is that it will have a 5 inch screen, pitting it squarely against the latest releases from Apple and Samsung. LG trusts Google will boost its own smartphone business. Google will utilize this operating system in its Android 4.3 release. Both phones will likely carry an incredibly low price.
LG has much to gain by this pairing, but Google was burned by LG previously, holding them responsible for a several month delay in the release of the Nexus 4. Google UK MD Dan Cobley said in December, “Supplies from the manufacturer are scarce, and our communication has been flawed. I can offer an unreserved apology for our service and communication failures in this process.”
The market for cell phone technology is ripe. It’s been several years since cell phones first outnumbered landline phones and that gap continues to grow. And within the worldwide cell phone market there are currently more smartphones than non-smartphones.
As for Google’s share of the smartphone market, Android outsold the iPhone in the first three months of the year. Google boasts 28 percent of the market while Apple holds only 21 percent. Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, leads the market with 36 percent.
