The Open Handset Alliance

Enter search advertising giant Google. Now a household name, Google has shown an

interest in spreading its brand and suite of tools to the wireless marketplace.The company’s

business model has been amazingly successful on the Internet, and technically speaking,

wireless isn’t that different.

Google Goes Wireless

The company’s initial forays into mobile were beset with all the problems you would

expect.The freedoms Internet users enjoyed were not shared by mobile phone subscribers.

Internet users can choose from the wide variety of computer brands, operating

systems, Internet service providers, and Web browser applications.

Nearly all Google services are free and ad driven. Many applications in the Google

Labs suite would directly compete with the applications available on mobile phones.The

applications range from simple calendars and calculators to navigation with Google Maps

and the latest tailored news from News Alerts—not to mention corporate acquisitions

like Blogger and YouTube.

When this approach didn’t yield the intended results, Google decided to a different

approach—to revamp the entire system upon which wireless application development

was based, hoping to provide a more open environment for users and developers: the

Internet model.The Internet model allowes users to choose between freeware, shareware,

and paid software.This enables free market competition among services.

Forming of the Open Handset Alliance

With its user-centric, democratic design philosophies, Google has led a movement to

turn the existing closely guarded wireless market into one where phone users can move

between carriers easily and have unfettered access to applications and services.With its

vast resources, Google has taken a broad approach, examining the wireless infrastructure

from the FCC wireless spectrum policies to the handset manufacturers’ requirements,

application developer needs, and mobile operator desires.

Next, Google joined with other like-minded members in the wireless community

and posed the following question:What would it take to build a better mobile phone?

The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) (Figure 1.5) was formed in November 2007 to

answer that very question.The OHA is a business alliance comprised of many of the

largest and most successful mobile companies on the planet. Its members include chip

makers, handset manufacturers, software developers, and service providers.The entire

mobile supply chain is well represented.

Working together, OHA members began developing a nonproprietary open standard

platform that would aim to alleviate the aforementioned problems hindering the mobile

community.They called it the Android project.

Google’s involvement in the Android project has been extensive.The company hosts

the open source project and provides online documentation, tools, forums, and the

Software Development Kit (SDK). Google has also hosted a number of events at conferences

and the Android Developer Challenge, a contest to encourage developers to write

killer Android applications—for $10 million dollars in prizes.