GPhone Guessing Game

Google’s mobile phone ambition centers on convincing mobile phone manufacturers and wireless carriers to offer phones based on Google’s software, The New York Times reports today.

Google is working on a mobile phone operating system based on open-source Linux software that would compete with Microsoft’s Windows mobile, according to an unnamed industry executive quoted by the Times. Applications reportedly include mobile search, mapping software, and Web browser.

Mobile advertising may subsidize a portion of the phone’s costs, the report says.

The Google phone, or GPhone, is seen as a way for Google to make a grab for additional mobile advertising, a growth market.

Over this past year, there’s been widespread discussion over Google’s planned phone, including the possibility it may include a phone service subsidized by mobile advertisements. Others have speculated what the phone will look like.

In its report about the GPhone, BusinessWeek last week cranked up the volume on that discourse and examined other advertising-subsidized phone services, such as Virgin Mobile’s Sugar Mama. Oh, that’s sweet.