Android is the open platform for mobile devices that the OHA are in the works of developing. The Open Handset Alliance or OHA is a group of mobile companies including Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, and Motorola, together they are working to make the mobile handset market more open.

There are several other members of the alliance you might recognize such as LG, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sprint, Ebay, Broadcom, Intel, nVidia, SIRF (the GPS chipset guys), Synaptics, and TI, there are several more, those are just the ones that I readily recognized. A large portion of the ones not mentioned are international cellular providers, mobile device GUI makers, and other firms with experience in bringing service, hardware, or software components to the mobile device market.

As I said, Android is the platform they are all working together to develop, to move things forward in the mobile market. They even say you can expect the first SDK to be available for download as early as November 12th, and that’s from the OHA website. They aren’t developing a new carrier network, a new handset, or a new mobile OS, they are developing a platform that all of those things can be built on or with. This platform should give carriers to tools they need to make most use out of their network, it should give handset manufacturers the tools they need to make the most out of their devices, and software providers for mobile devices the ability to make their software reach further, and do more.

We can expect to start seeing the fruits of this labor as soon as the second half of next year. Personally I can’t wait to see what this group of companies can do when they are releasing everything on a completely open platform, oh well, only time will tell.

Open Handset Alliance [via openhandsetalliance]