It’s about time.
I had a one-to-one with Andy Rubin two years ago. If you know Andy and his background (the Danger Hip-top), it was clear what Google wanted out of him. I picked up hints and indications in the years since, so I was past patience, waiting for these guys to finally get the ball rolling publicly.
We still talk about the Hip-Top as an amazing way to fuse internet-fueled services with a mobile device. The service is the spirit, the device is the body. Like re-incarnation, if you lose the device, you just need a new one and the spirit fills it up just like before. Now what if that spirit could live in other different devices? Alas, Danger didn’t have that luxury. But, I am sure Google will.
Heh, one more thing: A lot of this feels like when our team launched Series 60 (s60 to you noobs) back in 2001 – open platforms, cross-vendor, multiple devices, etc. Sounds similar, even to the similar sounding Open Handset Alliance. We created something called Open Mobile Alliance as a way to solidify the mobile standards at the time.
I wonder if it will go the same way, too – you can have all the partners in the world, but you still have to make the devices and deploy them in the market. Call s60 open to all, but to me, sadly, there is really only one vendor – ‘you know who’.
But as ‘you know who’ starts realizing that it’s a service company, maybe they will play well with Google, who is a service company slowly being a mobile company.
Way to go Google. Interesting times ahead for all of us.
Link: Google unveils cell phone software and alliance | CNET News.com:
Google officially unveiled Android, the new mobile phone software, during a press conference Monday morning. Thirty-four companies have said they will join the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance that will work on developing applications on the Android platform. Members of the alliance include mobile handset makers HTC and Motorola, U.S. operator T-Mobile, and chipmaker Qualcomm.
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A 200MHz ARM 9 processor is the minimum requirement for cell phones, said Andy Rubin, Google director of mobile platforms who co-founded the mobile software company called Android that Google acquired in 2005. The platform will be flexible, compatible with small or large screens, keyboards and other input methods, he said.
And more from TechCrunch:
Link: Breaking: Google Announces Android and Open Handset Alliance
Google just officially announced the Open Handset Alliance to create an open platform (to be called Android) for a Linux phone that can run mobile Google apps and others. The 34 partners include T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel, NTT Docomo, China Mobile, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Qualcomm, Intel, and Google itself. No mention of Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, or Nokia (which is pushing its own Ovi development platform). Here is the press release.
Writes Andy Rubin, the man behind the Google Phone. :
Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we’re not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing — the Open Handset Alliance and Android — is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today
Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.
