Wireless Innovations 2008 and Android

Speaking at the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference, T-Mobile and other speakers touted Android as an "iPhone for the masses" that will help spur open innovation in handsets. T-Mobile is expected to be the first carrier to come out with Android phone when it launches a handset using the software later this year and plans to put open software platforms on all its phones.

"We are working on a new approach for all our platforms so developers can have access to open software development kits and applications programming interfaces," said Joe Sims, VP and GM, Broadband and New Business,T-Mobile USA. He also added, "We are very excited about a set of open APIs and a variety of devices using them(Android).I hope it will generate development of not dozens but tens of thousands of new applications that will spawn a new level of excitement in this industry". Carriers like T-Mobile are beginning to embrace open platforms and allow more handsets and apps to run on their network which is a change from their previous stance of allowing only some closed apps. "All carriers have a lot of baggage. We know we are hard to do business with. We can be caught up in our own bureaucracy with the size of our business," said Sims.

Qualcomm on their part, are working with OEMs on more than five handsets that will use Android. The phones will ship in the next 12-18 months, as indicated by Sayeed Choudhry,VP, Product Management, CDMA Technologies, Qualcomm. He also added that the Android phones would have features similar to the Apple iPhone but be available at prices closer to mass market feature phones and sport better links to Web services for photos, video and more. " Google has really thought through what Apple has just begun to unlock". Speaking about LiMo foundation of which Qualcomm is a member, he said, "It's still early days for the LiMo platform but we believe it will get there. Having two flavors of Linux is better than the dozens of proprietary environments we have seen to date". Qualcomm is working on three handset designs for the software.


"The computer industry did this many years ago and it spawned the development of several major companies. Now we want to do it in cellular," said Sims.


Via [EETimes]