I just stumbled across an interesting article at iTWire about a proposed search engine created by - get this - mobile phone operators.  At the 3GSM World Conference, a handful of the world's major mobile service operators are said to begin talks to create a mobile-specific search engine.  As the iTWire article points out, this is all going down in spite of the fact that most of these mobile operators have deals with Google or Yahoo.

The companies involved, which include 3 mobile, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and Cingular, are teaming up to try to keep more money inside their walls as opposed to handing it over to Google & Yahoo.

I'm not sure that this is a good idea.  For one, if it does get off the ground, I have strong doubts that it could ever be better than what already exists.  The iTWire article makes the exact same point that I'd have made:  Microsoft hasn't been able to dent the search engine market.  What makes these mobile guys think they can?

And what better incentive for Google and Yahoo to ramp up their mobile offerings than the knowledge that a new competitor might be entering the market.  Yahoo recently rolled out a brand new mobile service called Yahoo! Go Mobile & Google recently annouced new partnerships with mobile phone maker Samsung.  These two aren't going to go down without a fight.

So the question becomes this:  Who has more fight… the mobile providers or the search engines?  What do you think?