By Martin Peers A DOW JONES COLUMN
It’s a sign of Google’s extraordinary success that its name has become synonymous with Web searches. It should be careful that it doesn’t also become a metaphor for trying to do too much.
Reports that Google plans to begin selling a cellphone directly to consumers should worry its shareholders. Going around wireless carriers by selling directly to consumers promises to be costly. Google will either have to sell a phone pitched at a much higher price than the competition or subsidize the costs itself as carriers do now. Either way, it is going up against a plethora of other smartphones without the marketing firepower that carriers bring to bear on new phones they sell.
