After months of speculation about a G-Phone, Google came out last week - full event script here - with its mobile plans in the form of Android, a mobile Linux OS. It did not go alone though, as the big guys of Deutsche Telekom, HTC, China Mobile, Qualcomm and Motorola joined in for the press conference. They are all part of a new 34 strong industry group called the Open Handset Alliance, also including companies like Telefonica, NTT DoCoMO, Sprint, Samsung or LG.

To sum up, Android is a "software stack" consisting of an OS and middleware - developed by Google - on which customised UIs and applications - developed by Google (Maps...) or others - can be added. It will be made available under an open-source license (i.e. free?) giving handset manufacturers and MNOs the freedom to customise the user experience for their users. In a perfect world it should still enable Motorola to differentiate from say Samsung on the phone UI and Telefonica to customise the user experience and key services offered differently than say T-Mobile. Quite the opposite from the one-size-fits-all approach Microsoft has with Windows Mobile - though it is changing a bit, just look at the customised UI available on Windows-powered phones offered by Vodafone and the Palm 500 in particular...;). In terms of business model, money won't be made on the OS, so Google expects to create value in two ways, directly via some revenue sharing deals and indirectly via increased mobile advertising revenue. Indeed the mobile internet experience is expected to become far better, so more traffic will lead to more clicks on Google ads. Earlier this week, Google also released the SDK with a full YouTube profile and walkthrough.

I have to admit I still sit on the fence on that  - sharing the views of most in the sector - for three main reasons:
1. The OHA might not be such a show of industry support as one might think. It is actually fairly easy to join and remain in the loop though not dedicating resources, especially actors such as Motorola (already involved with Windows Mobile, Symbian and its own Linux OS) which are clearly not fully committed. Were it not led by Google, I would already have discarded the whole initiative.
2. First walkthroughs were quite underwhelming, nothing here revolutionary compared to your average Phone OS, definitely not the WOW factor the iPhone delivered when introduced. OK this is still just an SDK, so there is room for progress
3. First handsets are only expected - from HTC - by Q3 2008, almost one year down the road. By that time, tough to say how Android will fare versus latest releases from Nokia S60, Sony Ericsson UIQ or a potential second version of the iPhone...

On paper, Android is definitely on the right track and its willingness to offer a great experience to all users while still enabling differentiation is great. I can only root for any initiative looking to further develop the mobile internet, so I will look with great interest on how the platform develops over the coming months.