More interestingly, when I talked to T-Mobile they told me that they were unable to access the purchasing process on the Google phone site. One account specialist told me that if T-Mobile had been offering the phone, they might have been able to give me a break on the 22 month contract stipulation, but as Google was offering it they could not. You can interpret that as self-serving, but I came away with an additional impression. The Google “phone-store” is about Google inserting itself in the customer relationship. Rubin during the press conference said pointedly, the relationship will be between the customer and Google. I think that’s telling. I think it points to (1) a Google Voice disintermediation strategy (no surprise there) but also (2) a Google Checkout strategy. If Google now has a payment processing relationship with me, then it has all the necessary components for a mobile payment system. The telecos, that are increasingly finding themselves backed into the corner of being a commodity provider, see their payment processing systems as the family-silver. Google is going straight for that. Today that seems more clear to me.