The Open Handset Alliance released Monday that it has been working together to provide an open source mobile operating system (dubbed “Android“) that is far more user friendly and customizable than standard mobile OS’s. I am proud to say that my company is part of the alliance which has contributors that range from mobile operators (like Sprint, T-Mobile), to handset manufacturers (like LG, Samsung, Motorola), to software companies (like Google, EBay, NMS), and to mobile component manufacturers (like Broadcom, Intel, NVIDIA). The OS is based on the Linux OS kernel which is also open source. For those who have smart phones and other internet enabled phones, this will add some spice to the currently small variety of mobile OS’s available now on the many phones being sold (Mac, Windows, & Blackberry are the only ones that I know of right now). The development kit (SDK) will be released on 11/12, so forms of this OS will probably not be seen on phones for another year perhaps.

I was excited that my favorite NPR (WBUR) program “On Point” was discussing this news yesterday, but I was quickly turned off by the fact that the host, Tom Ashbrook, got quite carried away by his misunderstandings of the project. He was calling it the G-phone or Google phone, which is a radical misnomer because there are over 30 companies involved in the alliance, and was very concerned that Google’s agenda with the OS would be to make money by planting ads in phones. Also, he raised the question about security and privacy because he thought that since it is open source it could be tampered with. He had at least 3 field experts on his panel for discussion, and I thought they did a good job talking about the possibilities of the project. However, they also had some of the same misinformation which was also furthered by some of the callers, and I think many people walked away from the discussion thinking falsely that Google has become a phone developer with a few partners putting out an insecure phone that invades peoples privacy. The discussion really missed most of the goals of the alliance in developing “Android” and I hope that in the coming weeks and months that Tom updates this story with a clearer apprehension of the significance of the alliance and it’s project(s).