Verizon Wireless Loves Google, They Make Sweet Devices Together

Verizon Wireless and Google have announced a “groundbreaking agreement” for “wireless innovation” that will offer “a compelling experience” for consumers. And yes, the press release is mostly wind-blowing and back-patting, complete with two incidents of the word “leverage.” But hold on now, it’s actually pretty interesting news.

The short of it is that Google and Verizon Wireless are going to work together on new phones, with the help of cell phone manufacturers. This will make Verizon the third major U.S. wireless carrier to support Google’s Android mobile platform, behind T-Mobile and Sprint. The manufacturers are unnamed, but so far Motorola, HTC, LG and Samsung have supported Android for other carriers. Verizon and Google say they’ll be announcing new handsets within the next few weeks.

But it does get more interesting than that: In a conference call with analysts and journalists, Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdams specifically said that Google Voice, a call management system that Apple’s notoriously rejected for the iPhone, will be supported. “You either have an open device or not, and this will be open,” Mr. McAdams said, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt handed out the appropriate level of back-patting for this commitment, and hey, maybe we should be excited too. Just not with all those worthless PR adjectives. [via PR Newswire and Wall Street Journal]