CAIIRO: Last week, Google - together with a broad alliance of leading technology and wireless companies - announced the development of Android, the first open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. The Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of 34 technology and mobile industry leaders, including Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others, have collaborated on the development of Android. Android offers a fully integrated mobile software stack that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications. Consumers should expect the first phones integrated with Android in the second half of 2008. The Android platform will be made available under one of the open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers the flexibility to design and modify the products. With this announcement, Google promises consumers a far better user experience than much of what is available on today s mobile platforms. The software is also going to support Arabic. This week, the Alliance will release an early access software developer kit to provide developers with the tools necessary to create innovative and compelling applications for the platform. We already have carriers in the US, Europe and Asia on board, such as China Mobile, and Telecom Italia, who will provide the service, Rich Miner, wireless strategist at Google, told Daily News Egypt, "but we haven t signed deals with any mobile operators in the Middle East yet. So far, the focus has been on releasing the platform itself, he added, it s open sourced, which means that anybody can develop their applications using the software stack, but it requires a lot of technical expertise to be able to build it. According to Miner, there is nothing in the platform that inhibits the development of Arabic applications. The service could be available in Egypt even if none of its mobile operators signed to provide the service, Miner added, as some of the mobile phone companies in the alliance could be working on some kind of unlocked phones on which the platform can be used anywhere, regardless of the network.
