Google announced the
Open Handset Alliance today:
"Building a better mobile phone would enrich the lives of countless
people across the globe. The Open Handset Alliance™ is a group of
mobile and technology leaders who share this vision for changing the
mobile experience for consumers."
The Alliance is a collection of Mobile Operators, Handset makers, Semiconductor Companies and Software Companies. Obviously Google is part of the Alliance. The other big names include Sprint, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Telefónica, HTC, Motorola, LG, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm. There are several others. Here's the
list.
The alliance has developed
Android:
"the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. We are committed to
commercially deploy handsets and services using the Android Platform in
the second half of 2008."
Google will provide the first look at Android on November 12 when the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) will be released.
Some details about Android:
- Android is built on the open Linux Kernel.
- Uses a
custom virtual machine in order to optimize memory and
hardware resources.
- Open
source.
My Quick Take:
Well, clearly not the iPhone killer. At least not yet anyway.
There are very few actual details at the Android web site (although there is a video of the Android engineers. how sweet). Until we actually see something this is nothing more than some high minded statement of what the perfect open source phone OS is.
Additionally, many of these industry alliances have a difficult time producing a usable product. Assuming this is really Google's baby and they are driving it, the likelihood of actually producing something increases.
So until November 12 when we'll get a look at the SDK, there's not much here. After that, there has to be an actual phone developed with this platform.
