An item on The Street reports that Google Plans Its Own Android Phone.

In what is likely to be seen as disruptive to the wireless status quo, Google is working with a smartphone manufacturer to have a Google-branded phone available this year through retailers and not through telcos, according to Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, who has talked to Google’s design partners about the plan.

This move would fulfill Google’s pledge to bring a new generation of open-standard mobile Internet devices to consumers. Traditional carriers keep tight controls over the features and applications that are allowed on phones. On the other hand, Google will presumably offer a device that lets users determine the functions.

This could be a low cost ‘terminal’ giving access to a whole cloud-computing environment supported by the major players such as Google. That would certainly seem to be the Google strategy.

If talk of the Google phone plan is true, the entrance of a unlocked, low-cost, Web-friendly touchscreen device will probably undercut other Android phone efforts by players like Motorola, Samsung and Dell. Motorola’s entire turnaround strategy is based on the Android operating system. The company is expected to announce a ultra-thin Droid phone at Verizon next month.

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