All Things Digital

The mobile market is heating up to a roiling boil, isn’t it? This morning Nokia (NOK) said it plans to acquire the 52% of mobile software outfit Symbian that it does not already own in a cash deal valued at about $410 million. But rather than roll up the company’s operations into its own, it’s turning them over to the newly formed Symbian Foundation.

A not-for-profit venture, the Symbian Foundation–which includes Motorola (MOT), Samsung, Sony Ericsson (SNE) and LG Electronics (LGERF.PK)–will steward the Symbian OS as a royalty-free open mobile platform. And that’s a pretty big deal, because Symbian is by far the world’s leading smart-phone software platform. It controls a 60% share of the market with 200 million handsets running its software.

Strategically, the formation of the Symbian Foundation and the opening of the Symbian platform is an aggressive pre-emptive strike against Google (GOOG), its Open Handset Alliance and its open-source Android mobile platform. Perfectly timed too, since Android seems to be falling behind schedule. “It offers us an opportunity to innovate faster on a bigger, united, more widely accepted platform,” Kai Oistamo, head of Nokia’s devices business, told Reuters. “It also enables us to deliver new products, we believe, faster to the market. I’m convinced we will sell more products.”

Google’s (GOOG) Open Handset Alliance is going to have to do a lot better than a few early prototype demos if it truly hopes to unify mobile Linux around its Android specification. Because rival LiMo Foundation is stepping up its game. And fast.

Earlier this year, LiMo uncrated a first wave of handsets running on its Linux-based software platform for mobile devices–18 devices from seven vendors. And now the foundation is adding some big names to its roster of mobile-phone outfits. This morning, LiMo announced eight new members, among them: Mozilla, developer of the Firefox Web browser and Verizon Wireless (VZ).

The companies’ membership is an important endorsement for LiMo–Verizon’s in particular. The mobile-phone player seems quite invested in LiMo and its vision of mobile Linux, which is far more Democratic than the OHA, which is one of those wonderful we’re-Google-and-Google-always-knows-best democracies. So much so that Verizon has declared LiMo’s to be its preferred mobile OS.

“We are wholeheartedly endorsing LiMo’s approach, and we are investing company resources, but we see the opportunity to have both the OHA and LiMo succeed and/or work together,” Kyle Malady, vice president of networks at Verizon Wireless, said during a conference call with reporters this morning. “LiMo is our platform of choice, but if there comes a point where we see there is benefit for our customers we will use OHA as well.”

(Image Credit: ThinkGeek)

Q: So if this is not the Gphone, when will we see the Gphone, and what will it be?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a Gphone. It starts a whole wave of innovation …

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one Gphone, but a thousand Gphones as a result of the partnerships … the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: ………..Gphone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the Gphone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products… if there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android.

–Excerpt from Google’s Nov. 5 Android analyst call

Google and Dell are collaborating on an Android-based cellphone?

Really?

Seems unlikely. Certainly, Google has said repeatedly that Android is intended not as a platform for building one Google-branded Gphone, but an entire ecosystem of them. And that will require the investment and commitment of a host of mobile-phone manufacturers–manufacturers who probably aren’t interested in developing handsets that run on a competitor’s platform.

A more likely scenario: Dell simply joins Google’s Open Handset Alliance and announces its own Android-based phone.

Odd, isn’t it, that Google will award up to $30 million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, but it’s willing to pony up just $10 million to spur interest in development of its new Android platform for mobile devices. Apparently Google’s dominion over space figures higher on the list of company priorities than its dominion over the mobile market.

This morning, Google’s Open Handset Alliance released the Android Software Development Kit in concert with the Android Developer Challenge, a contest that will see Google doling out $10 million in prize money to programmers able to create workable applications for the platform.

“We’ve built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that’s because they’re going to be written by developers,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in a statement. “We’d like to reward these developers and recognize them as much as possible.”

Cash prizes will range from $25,000 to $275,000. Half of the $10 million will be awarded for entries submitted between Jan. 2 and March 3 of next year. The other $5 million will be distributed in a second round that will start after the first Android-based phones arrive at market in the second half of 2008.

Android is built on a Linux 2.6 kernel and supports multitouch interaction, which means we’ll likely be seeing quite a bit of creativity on the platform.

“This is the Gphone. OK, this is not the Gphone.” The words of Iliyan Malchev, a Google engineer, in a video describing the company’s new mobile phone effort, really couldn’t have been more apt. Because what Google’s gone and built isn’t a hold-in-your-hand phone, but a robust open-development platform upon which to build one.

Android, as Google’s calling it, is a complete “stack” of software for mobile phones, backed by a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance. (Interestingly, Verizon, which was rumored to be interested in Google’s wireless efforts, isn’t yet a member.)

“Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices,” Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, explained in a blog post this morning. “It includes an operating system, user interface and applications–all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. … Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.”

The first phones based on Android are expected in the second half of 2008. And no, Google isn’t building one of them, as CEO Eric Schmidt pointed out over and over again during a conference call to discuss Android this morning.

Q: So if this is not the Gphone, when will we see the Gphone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a Gphone. It starts a whole wave of innovation …

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one Gphone, but a thousand Gphones as a result of the partnerships … the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: ………..Gphone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the Gphone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products… if there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android..

Previously:

• Report: Google May or May Not Reveal Phone Project Monday!
• The Mobile Apps Are Great, but the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Dial Function Really Makes It
• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?