Android...Applications and Handsets are Coming

One of my 2008 predictions was that the Google backed Android open handset platform would be well received in the industry.  I gave a lot of reasons why.  A lot of industry experts have taken the other side of the bet.  But that is the less insightful and easier side of the bet, since many standards fail and the few who make it take years to get there, just look at how long Bluetooth took to get there.  But there are signs that Android is alive and kicking.  Here are two data points:

According to Google, 1788 apps from 70 countries have been submitted to the Google Android Challenge.  This is a healthy number given it's been less than a year since the challenge began.  It will certainly grow as phones really make it to the market.  Which brings us to the next point.

According to this VentureWire article, pieces quoted below, T-Mobile already has a prototype and plan to ship Android phones in 2008. 

"At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference in Redwood City, Calif., sponsored by Dow Jones & Co., publisher of VentureWire, Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile's broadband and new business division, said he had already seen prototypes of the company's Android-based phone, which are scheduled to ship in this year's final quarter.

"I'm impressed," he said. "We will have more than one product...[The move to an open platform] will be innovation across the board, not just one device."

T-Mobile, like other carriers, was leery of Google at first, because the open platform that the search giant was pushing seemed radical and untested, Sims said. T-Mobile is now a part of Google's Open Handset Alliance, as is chipmaker Qualcomm Inc."

If indeed a consumer buys an Android phone in the next two years, let alone one, Android would be a success. 

All this is the side effect of the nuclear bomb that fell on the Wireless industry last year, called the iPhone.  It opened everybody's eyes as to what is possible.