Google Wallet Underwhelms?

Google has been aiming to help revolutionize the way Americans pay for things by enabling payments through smartphones.

It was recently revealed that Google's partner, Sprint, planned to unveil several devices this year that incorporate Google Wallet.

Google Wallet, though, may not be as successful as Google had hoped.

Citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the project, Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the Mountain View, Calif.-based Web company is examining changes aimed at improving Google Wallet and considering sharing revenues with such carriers as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are part of the competing Isis joint venture, which is set to launch in Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah later this year. The Bloomberg article also said two key managers with Google Wallet have left the Web giant, including Jonathan Wall, who was one of the creators of the Google Wallet software.??

Chetan Sharma, an independent consultant focused on the wireless industry, told Bloomberg that the reception to Google Wallet "has been lukewarm."

"Today, the operators have no incentive to adopt Google Wallet, given that they have their own ambitions in this space," Sharma added.

Sprint, however, has been bullish -- at least publicly -- on Google Wallet.

"We believe the ecosystem has taken off," Sprint executive Osama Bedier said during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, FierceMobileContent reported earlier this month.

Google Wallet incorporates Near Field Communications technology that lets customers make purchases at participating retailers by tapping their Android phones. Sprint said last September that shoppers could use the app on the Nexus S 4G -- Sprint's first phone to support Google Wallet -- at such retailers as American Eagle Outfitters, the Container Store, Macy's, Foot Locker and Subway.

Google certainly could benefit by partnering with AT&T and Verizon Wireless, whose combined total customer base was approaching 212 million at the end of last year.

Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for the nation's biggest mobile-phone company Verizon Wireless, said the company's position concerning Google Wallet hasn't changed. In December 2010, the mobile-phone giant denied reports that it was blocking Google Wallet on its devices and explained that the application is different than thousands of other apps.

"Google Wallet does not simply access the operating system and basic hardware of our phones like thousands of other applications. Instead, in order to work as architected by Google, Google Wallet needs to be integrated into a new, secure and proprietary hardware element in our phones," a spokesman for Verizon Wireless said at the time.

Verizon also said at the time in was in commercial discussions with Google concerning the issue.

Asked about the devices that will support the Isis joint venture, Raney declined to offer any details.

"While we have some phones with near field communications, I cannot say at this time if they will have ISIS support," she said.

Media representatives for AT&T, Google and Sprint did not immediately respond late Friday to emailed requests for further comment on Google Wallet.

Google Wallet may simply need some time to grow. The mobile payments industry is still young.

Matthew Talbot, SVP of mobile commerce for the enterprise software and services company Sybase, recently said it may be least a year or two before there is widespread distribution of NFC devices.

However, he cited a number of recent developments in the United States and abroad, including Visa's recently announced partnerships with Samsung, LG and Research in Motion in order to enable more phones to work with its contactless PayWave technology.

"The pieces are starting to come together, and there's plenty of momentum on all fronts to keep moving toward a contactless payment future," Talbot wrote in a blog last month. "All the same, I don't think NFC is going to completely take over like some pundits are predicting -- at least not in the next few years."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BOSS/Features/~3/G1zX9R6JJ1A/google-wallet-underwhelms.aspx

gloria cain gloria cain kandi burruss occupy portland occupy portland the hunger games bears lions