That Google and HTC have been in bed with each otherover the development of pre-production gPhone handsets is nothing new; what does come as a surprise is that, according to analysts at UBS, the manufacturer will ship an estimated 50,000 handsets using their own hardware design and Google’s new cellphone OS by the end of the year.  Intended for developers, who will undoubtedly be keen to figure out how to best code for what’s believed to be a Linux-based environment, it does herald the availability of a production version that should appear in stores sometime 2008.

For anyone wondering how that fits in with previous rumors describing the gPhone OS as cross-platform, analyst Benjamin Schachter emphasises that current thought is that Google will continue to make the software available to multiple manufacturers:

“If I had to guess, I’d say LG would be one of them”Benjamin Schachter, UBS

UBS are predicting further news from the search giant come October 24th’s analyst event.