The news that Google is going to start making its own mobile phones to run the Android operating system might seem odd at first but it's actually quite logical. I should stress it's unsubstantiated as yet but it's appeared on a number of websites.
The doubters have pointed out that promoting your own 'preferred' model is going to annoy a number of your partners. Let's say the story is true and Google makes its own-branded phone, called the Nexus, with HTC downgraded to the status of manufacturing partner. Others who've released Android phones lately - Sony Ericsson et al - are likely to get more than a little annoyed, no?
If it doesn't work it could end up as a way of destroying a lucrative market completely. Compete with the people carrying your systems and they might well go elsewhere.
On the other hand - and here's where the logic starts to work - it might work rather well, not because Google wants to compete with Sony Ericsson and the others but because its real target is the iPhone with maybe a nod towards the Blackberry. These are big targets but Google has already dominated in one area - search engines, obviously - and is making inroads into the cloud for applications.
My best guess is that the company wants to take everything mobile - hence the Chrome OS, due out on netbooks next year - and a mobile platform is the next logical step, hence Android in the first place. The thing is, the most successful phones are tied in with their OS - rightly or wrongly the market appears to have decided it likes both elements of a phone, hardware and software, to appear from the same place when it's doing anything complicated.
So we have Google about to make a phone to compete with the big guns in the smartphone area. Should be interesting. Google's partners' displeasure will no doubt have been taken into account already.
For more information on this story click here for the Reuters report.