3:20 PM -- If, as is now widely rumored, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is working on its own Android phone, why isn't the search giant hiring more hardware-savvy people?

Tech Crunch started the G-Phone stories flying, and Gizmodo says the phone "is a certainty." There's much speculation over whether the phone will be a true smartphone or a fancy data device that uses Google Voice VoIP.

Ex-Danger boss, Andy Rubin -- who is now the VP of engineering at Google -- and his team would certainly have the ability to put together a cool Google device. It is interesting to note, however, that if the company is preparing to make a major push into the hardware market, it isn't reflected in its job postings. (See Google Spy: Big Team Picking Up Phone.)

The only major hardware-related jobs that the company has posted at the moment that relate to Android are openings for a Strategic Partner Manager, Mobile/Distribution position, based in Seoul or Taiwan.

This posting is asking for a candidate to work with mobile OEM partners:

In this role, you will develop and manage mobile distribution partnerships with global OEM partners. You have worked at or with a mobile handset maker, PC manufacturer, or consumer electronics company, ideally in a business development, account management, or new initiative development role. You will focus on partnerships in JAPAC but primarily in Korea and Taiwan.

This would seem to relate more to Andy Rubin's comment in a CNET article in October: "We're not making hardware, We're enabling other people to build hardware."

Google has surprised before in the mobile space: Recall that what turned out to be the "Android" mobile operating system was originally supposed to be a Google phone. (See Google: Thinking Bigger Than Phones?) — Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung