Google Announces Google Phone Coalition

After all the rumors and gossip about the GPhone, Google has finally announced today that they are forming an "open phone" coalition with the goal of developing the highly anticipated Google Phone. The new operating system will showcase Google's growing collection of applications and services.

They are teaming up with companies expected to include Sprint, Motorola, Samsung, and NTT DoCoMo in order to promote their new software. It will be based on the open source Linux platform, overlaid with Java. The finished product will help to promote Google's services.

"What's being developed is unlikely to be easily transportable to Yahoo (YHOO) and other (service) providers," says Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, a non-profit group that supports the adoption of "Linux-based" operating systems in the mobile industry. Google says that they hope to have a finished product by this spring ready for the marketplace.

While it will obviously benifit, it is expected that the biggest bennificiaries will be the consumers by opening up the barriers keeping consumers from getting access to a wider variety of products and services. Still, Gillis says the Google Phone could push cellphone carriers to improve their game considerably. "This is likely to accelerate the demise of the walled garden, and consumers everywhere will be the big winners."

Yet another bonus to the platform will be that it is open to developing, making it easier for developers to write new applications for the device. "If you're a developer, you'll be able to develop (applications) for the new Google Phone very quickly."

Noticeably absent from the coalition are AT&T and Verizon Wireless, who both have something to worry about with the arrival of the new moneymaking machine.

[via USA Today]