Google announces new mobile OS: Android
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Alfredo Padilla Published on November 05, 2007 Comment on this |
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Google and a bevy of partners today announced details about the oft-rumored "Google Phone". Confirming previously leaked details Google will not be building its own cell phone like Apple and the iPhone, instead it will be developing an operating system, called Android, that runs on a variety of devices from many manufacturers. As part of today's announcement a group of heavy-weights in the mobile industry announced that they will partnering with Google in this endeavor, including handset manufacturers like Motorola. carriers like T-Mobile and thirty-one other companies. This partnership will be known as the Open Handset Alliance, which references the open nature of the software that will be developed. Google stated in its press release that the alliance's goals include "...fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a far better user experience...".There has been ample speculation that Google would seek to make a more muscular move into the mobile space and today's announcement confirms that. Google has already made many of its services available to users of mobile phones, including mobile versions of its email, mapping and calendar services. With the development of a mobile operating system and partnerships Google seems to be moving from a strategy that seeks to complement existing handsets to one that hopes to establish a more dominant position in the mobile space.
Many in the industry have been fearful of such a move by Google, including competing software developers such as Microsoft and its Windows Mobile platform and Nokia and its Symbian Series 60 platform. It's unsurprising that neither of these major players were involved in today's announcement. Carriers are also worried that Google may seeks to use its new mobile platform to compete with their services and the revenue they can generate.
In many ways the cell phone industry today resembles the computer industry of twenty to thirty years ago with several competing platforms and hardware manufacturers. At that time Microsoft made a muscular move to become the dominant platform for the new personal computer, and it may be that Google hopes to achieve the same success in the mobile space.
Few concrete details about Google's new Android operating system were made available today. Google stated that they expect devices running the new software to be available in the second half of 2008.
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