Ah, the most exciting cell phone news of the year (sorry iPhone lovers)...
November 5, 2007
Google Makes Its Entry Into the Wireless World By MIGUEL HELFT and JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5 ?? Google took its long-awaited plunge into the wireless world today, announcing that it is leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers that could accelerate the convergence of computing and communications.
Mobile phones based on Google??s software are not expected to be available until the second half of next year. They will be manufactured by a variety of handset companies, including HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung and be available in the United States through T-Mobile and Sprint.
The phones will also be available through the world??s largest mobile operator, China Telecom, with 332 million subscribers in China, and the leading carriers in Japan, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, as well as T-Mobile in Germany, Telecom Italia in Italy and Telefónica in Spain.
The 34-member Open Handset Alliance, as the group is called, also includes many of the leading makers of mobile phone chips, like Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, as well as SiRF Technology Holdings, Marvell Technology Group, Nvidia and Synaptics. EBay (which owns the Internet calling service Skype), Nuance Communications, NMS Communications and Wind River Systems are also members of the group.
The technology is expected to provide cellular handset manufacturers and wireless operators with capabilities that match and potentially surpass those using smartphone software made by Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, Research in Motion and others. In contrast to the existing competitors, Google??s software will be offered freely under ??open source? licensing terms, meaning that handset manufacturers will be able to use it at no cost and be free to add new features to differentiate their products.
As always, there's more....
