The demise of the Google Nexus One phone is fairly straightforward: a lack of sales killed the product.

Google posted a note on the Nexus One website with the title "Nexus One changes in availability." In the note, Google explained it no longer will sell its Nexus One phones online. While it will continue to sell through Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea and a few others, the experiment of Google selling a phone direct to consumers online is dead.

Andy Rubin, Google's vice president in charge of Android, denied that sales were not the problem when he spoke to the Wall Street Journal, and that the company broke even on the phones. Some industry experts were unconvinced.

"The bottom line is people like to look at phones in the store. Google has a lot to learn about phone sales, this is one lesson they learned," said Ken Dulaney, analyst at Gartner.

"Hats off to them for experimenting, but smartphones are not right yet for web access." Google hasn't released any figures for handset sales, and he is skeptical that it was much of a profit center.

Google has tried to paint the Nexus One experiment as a success because it helped build market presence for Android, its operating system. But given the small number of handsets sold relative to its competitors, it isn't clear that Nexus One made much difference, said Bill Morelli, analyst at IMS Research.

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"I would argue that given the number of actual handsets sold, it didn't actually do much to increase the percentage of Android handsets on the market," Morelli said, via email. He said if nothing else, it proved Andriod is a viable operating system. "It did give them a handset to act as a "proof-of-concept" for operators, to showcase Android on an optimized hardware platform."

Other reasons for the Nexus One's struggles include a high price tag of $529 and no operator subsidy.  It also could not differentiate itself from other smartphones. 

"It is competing with a whole slew of handsets that are very competitive from a hardware/features standpoint, and are subsidized by the operator," said Morelli.

The market for another Google phone like the Nexus does not look good. Morelli said Google is better off promoting its Android operating system to other phones, where it can continue to profit of its core business of display advertising. Dulaney said the market is not ready for straight-to-consumer smartphones yet.

"I don't think they will (produce another phone)," Dulaney said. "Maybe when the market matures, like it did with personal computers, maybe then you'll see people buying phones off the internet. But right now people want to go in and see the devices."

Google did not respond to requests for comment.

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