A UBS analyst is spreading rumors that Taiwanese manufacturer HTC will ship 50,000 cell phones running Google's mobile operating system by the end of the year. That's not so hard to believe. Just don't call the devices Googlephones. We've been saying for months there is no such thing as a Googlephone, or an OS, really — instead, it's just cell-phone-optimized services from Google. The low order number just confirms that Google knows it can't be a player in the hardware business. Expect the user interface on the phones to look a lot like Google Docs for Mobile, a wireless version of Google's Web-apps suite launched today. And here's a question: If we can run Google Docs on any phone, why would we — or Google — need a Googlephone? Right. That's what we've been telling you all along.

I've said it for months: There is no Googlephone. At last, the "industry analysts" so often consulted by reporters at newspapers have come around to sharing my point of view, according to a story in the New York Times. Google is, indeed, working on cell-phone software, including an operating system. But all this software, I believe, is a sideshow. Before you get all excited about the prospects of a Google phone OS, remember: Google is all about advertising. Always has been, always will be.

Portfolio.com speculates on Google's disruptive entrance into the telecom industry. Consistent with Valleywag's dismissal of Google handsets, the article focuses on the prospect of Google (and others) toppling the existing carriers by using newly available wireless spectrum and Wi-Fi on "open" handsets not tied to a single network, rather than mimicking the existing models of closed networks and closed hardware. [Portfolio.com]

Marcy Simon, Valleywag has learned, doesn't just have a coveted desk and a phone line in Google's cramped New York offices. She also has a seemingly hot assignment: PR for the yet-to-be-launched Googlephone. All this, simply for serving as married Google CEO Eric Schmidt's piece on the side? Yes, that's right: Schmidt's girlfriend, despite having no experience in wireless or telecom, is handling the launch of one of Google's most-whispered-about initiatives. Why the Duchess of West Chelsea, as Valleywag has dubbed Simon, is handling this, and not say, David Krane, Google's telecom-savvy director of corporate communications, is telling about both Schmidt's character and the fate of the phone project.

After persistent rumors of a Googlephone — Google's supposed answer to Apple's iPhone — failed to pan out in the U.S., the true Googlephone believers are looking abroad. Rediff, an Indian news and information portal, reports that Google will launch a "Gphone" in India in two weeks. Unlikely, unless, like Valleywag, you believe that Google's strategy is to turn every phone into a Googlephone.

Google may not be making a phone, but it sure is spending a lot of money to act like it — and a lot of that cash is splashing down in the Charles River. In Boston, the search giant is making unsolicited bids for the services of every mobile software whiz it can find. And its real-estate agents are on the hunt for an additional 200,000 square feet of office space in the area, on top of its existing facilities in Cambridge, Mass. Current candidates are 301 Binney Street, shown here, and a yet-to-be developed building at East Kendall Street. That should be plenty of space for engineers to spin their wheels sketching out never-to-be-released versions of the GooglePhone.

Attention, credulous gadget-seekers: There is no such thing as a GooglePhone. There never will be. Google executives are, shareholders should hope, way too smart to get into the hardware business, with its razor-thin margins. Sure, the search giant of Mountain View may be developing prototypes to help persuade carriers to feature its search engine and carry its mobile ads, as the Wall Street Journal has reported. But just as Google decided not to start making PCs, it's not going to start making cell phones, either. As Valleywag contributor Paul Boutin pointed out in Slate last year, when Google-PC hype was running as rampant as GooglePhone hype is today, "We might not realize it, but we all already have Google PCs." Any PC can access Google on the Web. And so it will be with cell phones, too. Check in your pocket or your purse. Your GooglePhone's right there.