New details have come in for the Google phone whose rumors have been going on and off for some months now. The Google phone is coming, but not as a competitor to the messiah of all phones, the iPhone. Instead, it aims to compete with Microsoft's Windows Mobile service.

Google's objectives are expected to be more software based, aiming to expand their advertising services, rather than competing with the hardware of the iPhone. It's also expected that they'll be migrating their Internet applications to run on the mobile platform. The advertising function is theorized to subsidize part of the phone's cost.

What new functions can they offer the mobile scene though? Most mobile carriers declined to comment on the subject, but as Arun Sarin of Vodafone points out, Google is already accessible from a number of devices, "you don't need a Google phone to do that." Some also speculate that its reception in the mobile world may not be as successful as on the Internet.

The Google phone won't be limiting its services to only one mobile carrier like the iPhone. Analysts also suspect that Google won't be making the phone itself but will only offer its software to manufacturers. Their software will be based on open-source Linux software, according to executive informants who wish to remain unnamed.