In announcing the Open Handset Alliance today, Google and its partners (including T-Mobile, Qualcomm, and China Mobile) discussed Android, an open source platform for the creation of mobile applications. Android is under the direction of Andy Rubin, Director of Mobile Platforms for Google.
In the opening remarks prior to the press Q&A, special guest Sergey Brin remarked on his recollection of "ten years ago, sitting in a graduate student cubicle" where they were able to "build incredible things" because of all the great open source technologies they could work with (LAMP, Python, HTML). He drew a parallel with the innovation that will flow from having a platform that will allow any developer to create applications that will work on a wide range of mobile devices.
(In the Q&A, Rubin noted that the software development kit will be available to developers within one week.)
But what exactly is the problem with the current development environment? Part of the issue solved by the Android platform appears to be that it includes a "full-featured browser."
Asked if Google is announcing the GPhone today, an irritated (Google CEO) Eric Schmidt replied, "Well, the good news is we're not preannouncing anything today." But he added quickly: "If you were to build a GPhone, you would probably build it around this platform."
He also foresees the rapid creation of "very different types of mobile devices" directly as a result of the new open alliance.
Addressing the "what's wrong with today's phones" question, Schmidt replied: "The fundamental problem with mobile phones now is that they don't have full-power browsers. Android includes a full powered browser, so there is no need to shoehorn the applications in."
He cited games, social networking, and anything incorporating audio and video, that will be more accessible on new devices employing the Android platform.
It certainly sounds like a GPhone could be the next shoe to drop.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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