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HTC will be launching an Android handset in the 2nd half of 2008

I am listening into the conference call between Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola where the Open Handset Alliance and Android open source platform was announced. Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google Inc., Andy Rubin, Director of Mobile Platforms, Google Inc., René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp., Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, and Ed Zander, Chairman and CEO of Motorola, Inc. made the announcement together and discussed their companies involvement in the new endeavor. The Open Handset Alliance, composed of 34 companies, is quite a departure from the standard for the U.S. wireless business and will have significant impacts across the world.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

I am listening into the conference call between Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola where the Open Handset Alliance and Android open source platform was announced. Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google Inc., Andy Rubin, Director of Mobile Platforms, Google Inc., René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp., Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, and Ed Zander, Chairman and CEO of Motorola, Inc. made the announcement together and discussed their companies involvement in the new endeavor. The Open Handset Alliance, composed of 34 companies, is quite a departure from the standard for the U.S. wireless business and will have significant impacts across the world.

As stated in the press release, the Open Handset Alliance aims to develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. The committed members of the alliance also share a common goal of fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a far better user experience than much of what is available on today's mobile platforms. The Android SDK will be available for download on November 12, 2007 and we should see devices in the second half of 2008.

I personally am very fond of the HTC Windows Mobile devices and was pleased to hear that HTC will continue to build its portfolio of new and innovative Windows Mobile devices. They have also committed to shipping a phone based on the Android platform in the second half of 2008 and I am really looking forward to the mobile world next year with hopefully an update to Windows Mobile, S60 updates (including a touch UI), Apple iPhone updates, and now Android devices.

The Open Handset Alliance announcement is exciting and as a T-Mobile USA customer I am very pleased to hear they are going to be one of the wireless carriers jumping on this open industry platform. Everything I heard on the call focused on making the end user experience much better while also making development for the mobile platform easier and more standard across the entire spectrum of mobility.

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