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What To Make Of Google's Android 'Delays'

Reports are circulating around the Internet today that Google's Android platform is facing difficulties and won't see the light of day before the fourth quarter. Reuters cites technical integration hurdles as the issue, with some Open Handset Alliance partners not able to bring Android to market before next year. I say this isn't really news.

Yes, I know, I am reporting on it anyway...

Here's the story. The Wall Street Journal ran a news bit this morning saying that Android has been delayed from the second half of this year to the fourth quarter of this year. This does not surprise me in the least. Even though I hoped differently, I didn't really expect to see Android handsets available before the holiday season. Here's why.

Only one manufacturer, HTC, has said it will definitely build an Android handset in the first place. It committed to having it available by the end of the year. This is something we've known since November 2007. HTC has given no indication that it won't meet its own deadlines. "By the end of the year" means before the end of the fourth quarter. No other manufacturer has said it would produce Android handsets this year.

Reuters, reporting on the WSJ story, notes that several OHA members, notably Sprint Nextel and China Mobile, won't be able to support Android until very late this year or early 2009. Again, none of them had previously committed to any time frame for Android. Only T-Mobile USA had said it will support Android this year, and that hasn't changed. (If you're thinking that T-Mobile and HTC will be the ones teaming up to offer the first Android handset in the USA, I'd say you're not far off.)

Lastly, mobile operating systems are a tricky business. They don't just appear overnight. Bringing new handsets, especially ones running a brand new operating system, takes 12 to 18 months to bring to market. Did the WSJ forget that Google didn't announce Android until November 2007? Twelve months from then is, shocker!, November 2008, well into the fourth quarter.

If handsets aren't going to be available for network operators to test until very late in the year, it stands to reason that they probably won't become 100% available until 2009.

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