What's the big deal about yesterday's Android announcement from Google?
Android is a new operating system for cell phones, designed internally by Google engineers. Unlike most existing cell phone operating systems, it'll be friendly to applications created by outside software developers. So if someone in Iceland creates a great application that allows you to schedule your phone to start ringing 15 minutes into a boring meeting, allowing you to escape, you can choose to put that application on your phone's main screen. Today, on most phones, your wireless carrier gets to dictate what goes there.
The key quote yesterday from Google's director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, was this: "We are not building a Google phone; we are enabling 1,000 people to build a Google phone." That means that there's no limit to the number of people who can design handsets to take advantage of Android (available for free), or applications that will run on the new operating system. Phones could start showing up by the second half of 2008.
Two things got downplayed in yesterday's announcement about Android and the Open Handset Alliance, a group that Google brought together that will build phones and software to support the Android operating system.
First, the threat an open phone poses to anyone else building an operating system for phones, whether they're open to outside apps or not. That list includes PalmSource, Symbian, BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Apple. If Google can get the Android operating system on enough handsets, that will attract developers who might otherwise be creating cool apps for the BlackBerry or iPhone.
Second, in unveiling Android and the Open Handset Alliance, Google didn't make much mention of Rich Miner, a Cambridge-based engineer who co-founded the start-up company Android, which Google quietly acquired in 2005. (He's mentioned in passing in this video.)
Also worth noting: two local companies are part of the Open Handset Alliance: Nuance Communications in Burlington, a leader in speech recognition technology, and Framingham-based NMS Communications, a seller of software and services for mobile applications.
