Google's Nexus One Offers iPhone New Competition

While brand enthusiasts speculate about the Nexus One and how it will compete against Apple's iPhone, practical retailers are wondering how Google's new smartphone will be marketed.

Set to arrive in stores this month, the phone will be subsidized by a wireless carrier -- supposedly T-Mobile -- though a service provider has not been officially revealed yet. A full-priced model without service can be purchased through google.com/phone with a Google checkout account.

Google, the world's largest search engine and most popular website, has an inherent marketing edge. Google used the popularity of its homepage to promote T-Mobile's G1 and Verizon's Droid, and now it must leverage every asset to compete in the cutthroat hardware market, taking on advertisers such as Verizon and AT&T.

Despite its global brand recognition and unquestioned dominance on the Internet, Google still lacks real-world distribution resources.

"The big unknown is what Google would do to get retail support," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin. "They really need relationships with someone like Best Buy who can get the phone into the hands of consumers."

And that is exactly what Google is doing. To help sell the Nexus One, Google has partnered with Best Buy. The retailer will demo and install Google applications on the branded smartphones. Google is also hoping that online retailers such as Amazon and eBay will jump at the chance to sell a phone that will rival the iPhone.

In addition to its venture into the smartphone category, Google's overall goal is to continue marketing its Android platform by pushing handset makers to integrate its software. Though Nokia is re-vamping its Symbian operating system in an effort to make it open-sourced, Android has proven itself to be more customizable and flexible in regard to consumer preferences.

But can Google's incredible brand power make its Nexus One more popular than Apple's iPhone?