Dell + Google = First Android Phone?

The Gphone has been resurrected and the rumor mills are running rampant with this one. The latest scuttlebutt is that Google is partnering with Dell for the first ever Android-powered handset. According to people in the know, word will be delivered from on high during the Mobile World Congress next month. Is this one for real?Really, folks? Dell and Google are building an Android together? Well, it's more believable than some of the bunk I've seen floating around the Internet of late.

Director of Strategy Analytics Neil Mawston, being quoted in Marketing Week, pretty much hits the nail on the head. He said: "It makes sense for Dell to have a high-profile entry back into the market because its last effort with PDAs pretty much flopped." The Axim line of Pocket PCs were priced well, but failed to compete with HP's more enterprise-worthy hardware.

Dell killed off its PDA business and instead sells smartphones from third-party vendors such as Nokia. Given that almost every hardware manufacturer on earth has some form of smartphone in its lineup, it's got to be sticking in Dell's craw not to have one to call its own. It was about this time last year that Dell brought in former Motorola staffer Ron Garriques to spearhead its then-new global consumer group. Could the Gphone, the mother of all smartphone rumors, be what Garriques has hiding up his sleeve? I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks.

Stay tuned...