Mobile OS : Google in the starting blocks

With Android, the brand new mobile OS from the Open Handset Alliance led by Google, the mobile phone industry, is about to experience what the landline phone industry went through over the last decade : a small revolution. This open-source initiative is very promising in terms of software innovation and will foster competition at all levels of the chain : device manufacturers, mobile network operators, OS providers & application providers. However, if mobile network operators have a keen interest to deliver more services to their subscribers, if they are ready to share a part of their revenue with other players on a niche market (like for the introduction of Apple's iPhone), most of them are clearly reluctant to change their very profitable business model for the mass market (3 billions users worldwide).

Despite their strong market position & "welcome-in-our-world" attidude, Symbian & Microsoft must be sweating out watching this video! The mobile phone market is huge : Nokia, the leader manufacturer with a 35% market share claims to sell 1.2 million phone a day!

More about the technical aspects of the so called GPhone in this excellent article from the InformationWeek blog.

More about the impacts of the GPhone initiative in this article from the NYTimes blog which also figures out why Google will probably have to either build from scratch or take over a mobile network operator in the US (even though Sprint Nextel & T-mobile have already jumped on the bandwagon). Google has announced it is applying to participate in the 700 MHz spectrum auction in the US.

Finally, check out the official Google mobile blog for the latest news.