Answer Guy Central

Wow. And just when we had declared the Google Nexus One to represent no real business change.

While I’ll be standing by that statement for the most part, in not reading the contracts I missed one huge business change that folks who opt to take the Google / T-Mobile subsidy and get their Nexus One phones inexpensively could run up against:

Cancel early, and you owe not just T-Mobile, but also Google an early termination fee.

And it’s a fee that would make Verizon proud: $350 to Google, $200 to T-Mobile.

What ever happened to Google and their “Don’t Be Evil” motto? The little company that’s become more influential than any other has created the first fee to a phone manufacturer for early plan termination, which would be fine if in doing so they had eliminated your liability to the carrier. They’ve not. The Google Nexus One, as cool as it is, is feeling more and more like a giant rip-off.

When I bought my Droid from Verizon one of the things that made me jump when I did was the knowledge that Verizon was getting ready to raise their ETF from $175 to $350. Verizon’s caught grief from the FTC for this, but next to the $550 you might pay to back out of a Nexus One contract that’s looking pretty tame.

I’m all about business change. I was disappointed when I thought the Nexus One looked like no business change at all. Now, I wish that had been correct.

A few weeks ago I had some harsh words for David Pogue. Dave, The New York Times’ lead technology columnist—among other things—had expressed an opinion about copy protection that I felt was so out of touch with reality he needed to be called on it.

Pogue didn’t like my opinion. He told me so. Well, David . . . this time I’m with you: today, Pogue comments on Google and their new Nexus One cell phone. And I’m happy to report that he’s back in the fold as “the voice of reason”.

Over the last few months, and especially the last couple of weeks, the hype for Nexus One has been in full overdrive. Without every saying so officially, Google had let us know that they were about to release a new, super-feature-rich phone that you can buy without a contract. And they’ve done exactly that. The Nexus One is very, very cool, leap-frogging even my beloved Droid in a few areas (while falling short in a few others).

And that’s it. Business Change from the Nexus One? Very close to zero.

My disappointment with what Google has done stems not from my feelings about the device itself; I’ll repeat that the Nexus One is a great SmartPhone. But let’s be clear: while it’s theoretically true that you could just buy the phone and then 1) get service from the carrier of your choice and 2) get that service at a lower cost , the reality is that differences in the way cell carriers move calls and data around means that the only place you can get service for the Nexus One is T-Mobile. Yes, you could use AT&T instead, but then your data would be too slow.

Oh, and by the way: if you buy your Nexus One from T-Mobile, on contract, you’ll pay about the same thing that AT&T gets for an iPhone and Verizon gets for a Droid. And if you buy a Nexus One without a contract it costs . . . you guessed it . . . pretty much what AT&T and Verizon’s flagship phones cost without a contract.

Overall, this makes the Nexus One announcement a non-event in my book. So why write about it?

Because this is the very first time that Google has hyped/announced/released something that qualified as nothing more than a me-too. Love them or hate them, Google pushes the envelope on everything they do, and the Nexus One is not business change, phone change, power-to-the-people, or anything else, other than Google wanting very much to usurp Microsoft and Apple in the phone operating system wars.

I concede, Google; Android is spectacular. The Nexus One is a great Android phone; I almost want to replace my Droid. But . . . really, when you tell the world you’re going to change business, you need to actually bring some business change to the table. The Nexus One is no such thing.