Less than a week after the WSJ broke the news that Google would be announcing their Linux-based gPhone OS and accompanying software suite within a fortnight, Monday 5th November is pegged as the day that the search giant will open up what have been notoriously-tight lips regarding the expansion of their business model within the cellular industry.  So far, while handsets will be conspicuous by their absence, the launch is believed to comprise details of the partnerships made with hardware manufacturers and international network operators all willing to fall into line with Google’s “open access” strategy regarding third-party software and handset flexibility.

Rumor also abounds that the core and ethos of this project will be based on Andy Rubin’s Android platform; Rubin, profiled today in the New York Times, was the genius co-founder of Danger and piloted their Sidekick range, and saw his latest project Android picked up by Google in 2005.  It has long been suggested that, thanks to his familiarity with data-centric mobile services, they’ve had him working on the increasingly complex balance of cellular search and targeted advertising needed to support a gPhone OS.

“[E]ven though he is in charge of developing Google’s answer to the Internet phone of the future, Mr. Rubin is a throwback. While Silicon Valley is now in the midst of a “Web 2.0” entrepreneurial frenzy, with an emphasis on clever business ideas that quickly attract millions of Internet users, Mr. Rubin is a proven member of an earlier group of engineers-turned-entrepreneurs who have a passion for building complete digital systems … In that regard, Mr. Rubin may be one of the clearest links between the computing industry’s recent past and its rapidly emerging future — and the embodiment of how Google hopes to bridge the two realms” NYT

It’s not the first time we’ve looked at the Sidekick as a possible gPhone cousin, but as expected Google’s plans extend far further than what some marginalised as a smartphone-for-tweens.  Instead, the search company intends to helm a so-called Open Handset Alliance comprising carriers, hardware and software developers believed to include Qualcomm, Broadcom, Intel, Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Sprint, Texas Instruments, T-Mobile USA and Japan’s KDDI and NTT DoCoMo, among others.  The presence of Japanese networks could potentially be both a challenge and a temptation to operators from elsewhere; the state of cellular development in the Far East is acknowledged as far in advance of, say, the US, with a population far more comfortable with mobile applications and general use.

All this could be tied up with - in a first for the mainstream cellular market - an open-source licence.  Sources close to the project suggest that the gPhone platform is both based on, and will offer much to, the open-source community, with the final product licenced under the Apache Licence, Version 2.0.