Google and Gphone

When Apple iPhone was making history, there was a widespread news that GOOGLE will launch gPhone and will give Apple a run for the money.
It was quite interesting to read an article in information week, titled, "Why Google wont sell a gPhone?" (Thanks to the Google Desktop web clips gadget, if not would have never come across this article)
The thought that, it could also be a ploy to strike relationships with every carrier and having a psychological advantage over them on the deal table could be a real possibility.
Does the data, "Google share price was almost 20 percent up in the last 6 weeks " in the article also suggests, it is just a stunt to keep the share prices up with the buzz being generated? ( Am i reading too much between the lines?)
If both the above could be true, what is the power that Google wields on the minds of the people? Just a mere possibility or a stupid conclusion, sends shock waves to the carriers, generates theories with innovative suggestions that they are doin something path breaking(wimax and wifi phones independent of carriers and what not hypothesis) and not to mention the soaring of stock prices?
I would really agree with the conclusion of the article that they are possibly building a mobile OS. Arent they challenging the microsoft on all fronts, especially the OS. Google docs, spread sheets and powerpoints and sponsoring mozilla. May be one day all the applications will be running on a browser.
I was also able to come up with one more reason why google will not sell gPhones? You can't have a hardware in the perpetual beta stage!!! :-)