Scott Kirsner at the Boston Globe does a nice job digging at what Google is - might be - developing at their Cambridge, MA location. Given the Boston campus lead of Rich Miner who came to Google through their acquisition in 2005 of mobile stealth start-up Android founded by Andy Rubin and Rich Miner - it has been rumored that the core of the anticipated Google gPhone is being developed in Boston. Clearly Google has a Mobile Strategy that brings the Google Apps, Search, Advertising, GoogleTalk and Grand Central platforms together and aggregates them through a mobile device (see here, here, here).
In his Boston Globle article, Scott has talked to local Bostonians who have seen the gPhone:
"Dan Roth, president of VoiceSignal, a division of Nuance Communications Inc. which makes speech recognition technology for cellphones, is under NDA. Mike Phillips, founder of Vlingo Inc., a speech recognition start-up, has seen the phone - but neither company would say whether they're working with Google. Paul Ferri, a founder of the Waltham venture capital firm Matrix Partners, has seen it, as has Murali Aravamudan, founder of a start-up called Veveo that is building a video search engine especially for phones. "We'd love to support a Google phone, if and when it becomes available," Aravamudan says, adding that there isn't yet a deal in the works.
Miner and Google are saying next to nothing about the work they're doing in Cambridge - nor are they commenting on the speculation about what Google's phone strategy will be, which has been spreading across the Net this summer.
"I have been having a lot of fun at Google, including helping to build the Boston office," Miner writes via e-mail. (He later sent out an e-mail to a large number of his contacts advising them not to talk with me for this column.)"... and later in Kirsner's article...
"Better than anybody I've ever met, Rich can combine what's possible in the technology realm with what's possible in a corporate environment," says Bill Warner, a cofounder of Wildfire.
Checkout Scott's video summary of his conversations and speculation on the Boston based development of Google gPhone:
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