Google and T-Mobile USA to showcase first Android phone next week

The first handset to feature Google’s Android operating system – an HTC Corp. model destined for T-Mobile USA Inc. – will debut at a media event in New York next week, on Sept. 23, according to T-Mobile.
Google and T-Mobile will provide “details” on the HTC device next week, but a carrier spokeswoman would not elaborate. The most avidly sought details, of course, will be when it will be launched, how much it will cost, and what features it will offer to consumers.
The launch of the device – dubbed the “Dream,” according to media reports – is important to all three players. Google seeks “eyeballs” for its mobile OS, a new area for the company to play in. For HTC, the device represents a departure from its historic devotion to using Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile OS. And for T-Mobile, which is beginning to build out a 3G network, the device and its associated services may help it retain subscribers who might be tempted by other high-tech handsets at rival carriers.
The much-hyped Android operating system and its value proposition for consumers will be under a spotlight next week, as it is one of the most high-profile efforts to take Linux into the mobile handset. Inevitably, it will be compared with Research In Motion Ltd.’s proprietary BlackBerry OS, Apple Inc.’s proprietary iPhone OS and Nokia Corp.’s Symbian OS, not to mention other Linux efforts such as those by the LiMo Foundation.
Indeed, in recognition of RIM’s global success, Apple’s ambitious international launches and Google’s long-incubated mobile plans, Nokia this summer bought Symbian outright and declared that it would make the software open source and free to handset vendors – an echo of Android’s main selling points.
But Android’s debut is something of a high-wire act. While it applies initially to one device at one carrier, it must demonstrate convincingly that Android offers consumer value, said one analyst.
In August, analyst Avi Greengart at Current Analysis captured the thumbs-up/thumbs down nature of Google’s effort to join the mobile fray. If the handset OS does not provide “compelling” consumer value, it will “fall flat,” Greengart said last month.
Android app store
There’s some indication that Google has struggled with its application development efforts; by many accounts, the crucial element in any software-based endeavor is to attract as many imaginative applications as possible from the developer community. To that end, the leading OS efforts have all launched programs with financial incentives to create those applications.
In Google’s case, it promised in July a new software development kit, or SDK – the main means of application development – to only the 50 winners of its Android Developer Challenge. That led to an online petition in August signed by nearly 220 developers asking for more information on the progress of the new SDK. By late August, Google released an Android SDK in beta form, with a timeline for future updates, to all interested developers.
At the end of August, Google announced that the first wave of applications would be free at its own, self-styled Android Market – a structure akin to Apple’s App Store concept – with paid-for apps to come in the future.
Given the long lead time and high-profile nature of Google’s efforts, the news emanating from New York on Sept. 23 will be closely followed by the wireless industry.