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Get ready for a branded Google (News - Alert) Phone, despite all denials from Google that such a thing is being built, says TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. Rumors of this sort have been circulating, off and on, for a couple years.

 

But Arrington thinks the rumors are true. "Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers," he says. "They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010."

 

TechCrunch says the phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding, as Microsoft did when introducing the Zune.

 

Arrington says Google has been dictating every key specification of the hardware and software, apparently taking an Apple (News - Alert) style approach, even using an open operating system that ensures all Android-based applications actually will work on its implementation of the OS.

 

Typical industry business practices would suggest Google not do this, as it places the company in competition with other device manufacturers and at least indirectly with service provider partners, to an extent.

 

Apple was similarly strict about branding, but was not licensing the core operating system freely to other suppliers.

 

Still, Google so far has crafted an unusual strategy in several ways. It created a new "open" mobile operating system that is available on a "Linux" style licensing model. It is making that operating system available to any manufacturer that wants to use it, as Microsoft did.

 

It has what appears to be an especially close working relationship with Verizon (News - Alert) to develop Android devices and applications, similar in some ways the "exclusive" deals hot devices typically have been offered.

 

And it may be crafting a "demonstration" model that resembles the way Apple integrated all elements of the experience in the iPhone (News - Alert), perhaps as a way of spurring such thinking by other Android suppliers.

 

To some extent, though, the move is in one way only a highly-integrated approach to crafting devices with some lead orientation, such as "Twitter" phones, or "navigation" phones or "email" phones or "Skype (News - Alert)" phones. Presumably a Google-branded device would go the furthest yet in optimizing user experience for Google apps.