It started with Apple, but here comes Google.
In the second major announcement this year by a Silicon Valley stalwart that aims to shake up the way people use mobile phones, Google Inc. officially announced Monday a sweeping plan to encourage a new breed of software development designed to make it easier to surf the Internet from a cell phone.
But Google's not going at it alone. It is working with a newly created global coalition of companies, called the Open Handset Alliance, that includes phonemaker Motorola Inc. and wireless carriers Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. And unlike Apple's iPhone, sold exclusively in the U.S. by AT&T Inc., the Google software platform could be available on countless phones and sold through multiple carriers.
Google is not introducing its own phone - one has been rumored - but a suite of software that can be used on phones starting in the second half of next year. Besides Motorola, other phonemakers participating so far include Samsung, LG Electronics and HTC.
Google's software platform, called Android, runs on open-source code, so any software developer can create a program for it. The idea is to encourage innovation, and thus improve the chances of developing an advanced mobile phone capable of enticing more people to use Web tools on their phones. It also creates new competition for handsets that use Microsoft's operating system for phones as well as Apple's iPhone.
'In order to get a tremendous new mobile phone experience, you need to attract' people who haven't had access to the mobile platform before, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a conference call Monday. 'And that's software developers. This is a developer announcement. You can now build the great things you've done on the Internet' on a mobile phone.
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