James Siminoff

Will Google Voice kill Android?

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch did a interesting post today about leaving the iPhone for the new Android My Touch 3G phone.  He is leaving the iPhone because they blocked Google Voice’s application from being put in the app store.  Mike is a big fan of Google Voice.

For those of you that don’t know, Android is a operating system for cell phones that was developed by Google and Google Voice is a unified communications product offered by Google (my thoughts on Google Voice are here)

Google Voice’s application is now available on Blackberry and Android based phones.  Its features are basically the first step in taking over the carriers most profitable features and turning the mobile network into a commoditized dumb pipe.  ATT blocked the application from going on the iPhone.

Personally I hate the fact that the carriers have so much control.  However in the US where we have only 4 operators, the lack of competition has created this reality.

Which brings me to the point of this post.  It is my opinion that the Google Voice application is going to severely harm Google’s success with Android.  Google should have waited a lot longer before showing its true intentions with Google Voice/Android as the carriers are now on high alert.

Any carrier executive worth his corner office is going to pull all future Android phones from their line-up immediately, lock app stores down in the same way ATT has done with the iPhone’s or very quickly face becoming a low profit commoditized dumb pipe…