Google Phone Windfall Skips Chipmakers

Following in Apple's(AAPL) footsteps, Google(GOOG) plans to reinvent the cell phone in its own image.

The company's announcement Monday of a mobile-phone software kit, while not the "Gphone" handset that many expected, heralds a new breed of Internet-connected wireless phones.

Google gave chipmakers a prominent role in its revolution, with a handful of semiconductor firms listed among the founding partners of the Open Handset Alliance, the consortium that will develop its Android cell-phone software.

So far, though, the silicon side of the story isn't finding much of an audience on the Street.

Qualcomm(QCOM), for instance, was front and center in the announcement, with CEO Paul Jacobs participating in the media conference call.

Yet Qualcomm's stock fell 1.2% on Monday to $40.85.

Compare that to the months leading up to the release of Apple's iPhone, when investors piled into any chipmaker suspected of supplying the gadget's innards -- Marvell Technology(MRVL), Broadcom(BRCM) and Skyworks Solutions(SWKS) popped with every report that linked the companies to the iPhone.

According to Stifel Nicolaus chip analyst Cody Acree, the details about Google's phone plans are still too nascent and uncertain to provide investors with a clear earnings link to any chip companies.

"It's much too early for investors to be taking positions and making solid bets, because this could go in many different directions," he says.