Recently in handset Category

Last week at DreamForce, Salesforce.com's annual orgy of self-congratulation, Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the opportunity to explain why Google dropped $12.5 billion for Motorola: The Internet search giant wants to make... telephones.

The world's most famous Internet company uses the annual conference of the company that practically invented the Software-as-a-Service industry to announce that Google's next business move is manufacturing telephones.

While everyone is running around with "software prohibited" buttons pinned to their sky-blue lanyards – get it, clouds in the sky? – one of the industry leaders in no-software applications is talking about making actual stuff.

Let that sink in.

There's certainly a message here. But not necessarily one that the boys – and I do mean boys, but more on that some other time – in Cloud Cukooland think they're hearing.

In other words, as more and more people attempt to do things "in the cloud," the Next Big Thing is making appliances that connect to it. Like, for example, telephones. Continue Reading...

Imitation, as they say, is the best form of praise. So it's no surprise that following on the heels of Apple's iPhone triumph, other computer makers are eying the handset to boost their bottom lines. The buzz is that Acer and Dell are working on high-end smartphones, according to Juniper Research's Analyst Xpress blog today. 

The Wall Street Journal has a story on Dell, as well, saying that "people familiar with the matter" indicate that Dell may launch a smartphone "as early as next month."
I say, the more the merrier. Computer makers bring a different POV to the table, as we saw with the iPhone. And that can only be a good thing.