For the past few years Google has offered partners early access to upcoming versions of Android so they could build a sort of flagship phone or tablet. Up until now Google has always worked with one company at a time, producing devices including the HTC Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy S, and Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones and the Motorola XOOM tablet.

But now The Wall Street Journal reports Google may start working with up to 5 partners at the same time and we could see several Nexus devices from different companies offered at the same time.

Google might also sell those products directly to consumers through the Google Play Store — much as it recently started doing with the latest Nexus phone from Samsung.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

The move makes a lot of sense, since it would give Android device makers an opportunity to bring phones and tablets with the latest software to market more quickly. At the same time, it would allow Google to have more influence on the hardware specifications for upcoming devices.

According to The Wall Street Journal, it would also be an attempt to wrest some of the control away from wireless carriers — much as Apple has done by controlling the hardware and software decisions in-house.

Google is also in the process of acquiring Motorola, which has led some to fear that all future Nexus devices would be made by Google/Motorola. While company officials have said that Motorola will continue to run as an independent company, if Google selects multiple partners for future Nexus devices, then there’s less reason to fear nepotism.

Google has not confirmed the details in the WSJ report, which cites “people familiar with the matter.”

via Droid Life

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

6 replies on “Google could have multiple partners for upcoming “Nexus” phones, tablets”

  1. What a great news. I hope I will see HTC Nexus again or Asus or both + other brands I am not interested in.

  2. I wonder if this is Google’s attempt to cut down on the fragmentation?  I also wonder what effect it will have.  I’d expect that manufacturers will simply offer the same hardware as one of their current models, only Google will install vanilla Android on it.  So there could be potentially a Samsung Galaxy S III Touchwiz and a Samsung Galaxy S III Nexus?  Will that confuse people?  Or perhaps they will create a whole new hardware for their Nexus line?  Or worse case make new hardware, but cripple it so that their non-vanilla version doesn’t get hurt in sales.

  3. not really possible, google have trouble for just one partner right now. the software just take forever to up date (nexus one)

    1. the only people you can expect an Android 4.0.x from is the custom rom community, not google. they said there will be no official ICS for N1

Comments are closed.