Google将宣布采用'Android'手机软件

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from cnet
Google to unveil 'Android' phone software

Posted by Tom Krazit
Googleis ready to unveil a suite of software for mobile phones based onopen-source technology, backed by some of the largest wireless industrycompanies in the world.

The company is expected to hold a press conference on Monday to unveilthe project, which is expected to incorporate software from the Linuxworld into a mobile platform code-named Android that's designed to runon phones, according to sources familiar with Google's plans. Asoftware development kit for what's being called "a completemobile-phone software stack"is believed to be in the works and will be released relatively soonthereafter, the sources said. It's not exactly clear what kind ofsoftware will come as part of that stack, but it's said to includeeverything you need to run a phone.
Japanese wireless carriers KDDI and NTT DoCoMo are said to be heavilyinvolved in what will be called the Open Handset Alliance, according toother sources. The rest of the more than 30 other companies involvedreads like a who's-who list of the mobile-computing industry, includingQualcomm, Broadcom, HTC, Intel, Samsung, Motorola, Sprint, and Texas Instruments.
Don't expect to see a Google phone, or Gphone, on store shelves anytimesoon. And in such a large project with so many different players, plansand some details could still change over the weekend. It's unclear whenthe final version will be released. Google has repeatedly declined totalk about the Gphone or confirm the Monday event.
Persistent rumors of Google's interest in the mobile-phone market have captivated Silicon Valley and the wireless industry for months. The company's interest appears to be simple: there are more than a billion mobile phones in the world, and sales show no signs of slowing down.
Over time, these mobile phones are going to become more and more sophisticated, and the race to develop a truly mobile computeris wide open. Google has the engineering talent to make a concertedpush into this area while keeping rivals like Microsoft at bay, and ithas enough resources to force the industry to take it seriously,despite its relative lack of experience in the market.
Mobile phones are just starting to move beyond the stripped-down mobileInternet and join the party with their bigger PC cousins. When they getthere, they'll need search, and they'll need applications tailored tomobile phones. Those are things Google figured out how to do a longtime ago.
And when you've got practically unlimited amounts of money, finding the things you don't have is somewhat easier. Android was the name of a mobile-phone software company acquired by Googlein 2005 and led by Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Danger. It was neverentirely clear what Android was working on, but it appears to be comingto fruition.
The open-source community appears to be contributing a lot oftechnology to Android. Google is expected to license Android under the Apache License, Version 2.0, according to sources.
Wind River Systems, a companythat specializes in tailoring Linux for embedded devices such asnetwork equipment and mobile phones, is likely to be a key part of thealliance, sources familiar with the effort said. The company isexpected to play a role in working on a Linux foundation for Google,integrating it with specific hardware, and providing support to phonecompanies using the software.
A Wind River representative declined to comment Friday on any Google partnership.
Wind River previously was fond mostly of its own operating system, VxWorks, but it got Linux religion in 2003, and Linux has been a top priority for Chief Executive Ken Klein.
But Linux in mobile phones has been a tough proposition formulticompany consortia over the years. Among those that have tackledthe challenge are the Linux Phone Standard (Lips) Forum, the Open Source Developer Labs, the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), and most recently, the LiMo Foundation founded in 2006.
The Google group is separate from LiMo, but the two share many members,and a connection could be beneficial. Linux-based phone software forGoogle could dovetail with LiMo's work, providing mobile phone softwaredevelopers with a unified software foundation.
Mobile phones can't run just any software. Battery life is paramount, and therefore software must be designed to run inside a constrained environment with limited amounts of memory and processing power at its disposal. Linux appeals to phone makersbecause it's modular, meaning that it's relatively easy to piecetogether only the technology you need, and its relatively cheap toacquire the parts.
Also, phones are complicated, at least as they compare to PCs. ARM's chip designsare at the heart of almost every mobile phone in the world, but thosecores get implemented in very different ways by partners such asSamsung and Texas Instruments, and ensuring application compatibilityacross multiple phones is a difficult undertaking.
The key to Google's software, however, will be how it'saccepted by the public. People are drawn to sleek hardware, but theyspend the majority of their time working with software. That's where anattachment is formed with a computer, and that attachment isparticularly strong with a device you would carry with you everywhereyou go. No details were immediately available as to the look and feelof the software.
Word of the pending Google news had reached JumpTap, a competitor toGoogle in the mobile ads space that is not included in the announcement.
"I'm not sure if it's an industry-supported event or a Google trap" toget developers to write to Google software, said Dan Olschwang, chiefexecutive of JumpTap. "If it is really open source and the mobile-phonemanufacturers will adopt it, it will be a major industry-changing event."
Google isn't just looking to expand its ad monetization technology tonew platforms, but also to shake up the telecommunications industry andits "walled garden" approach that limits what handsets, carriers, andservices consumers can use, industry experts said.
"Google's stated open-source approach, or open net approach to life, isantithetical to the way cellular carriers look at the world," said TimHanlon, an executive vice president at Denuo, a consulting arm ofadvertising agency Publicis Groupe. Carriers are "loath to separatedevice from service. They're loath to let third-party applications playon their proprietary network."
If Google succeeds in opening up the industry it will be the biggestthing the search company has done in the last couple of years, saidStephen Arnold, author of The Google Legacy and a new book, Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator. "The phone companies "don't understand the business Google is in, and now they're talking to them!"
And the company could very well have a trump card to play, if it follows through on its interest in the 700MHz spectrum auction scheduled for January 2008.
Can Google really be a mobile-software developer, search engine,application house, and wireless carrier? And will people actually wantto use that? We might soon find out.
News.com's Stephen Shankland and Elinor Mills contributed to this report.