Enter the Android, Google phone rides big hype to launch

A fruit of that announcement was set to drop at a news conference in New York on Tuesday: T-Mobile

USA was to reveal the first phone to use Android, Google’s software platform.

But a lot has happened in the world of cell phone software in the intervening year, and Google looks set for an uphill battle in trying to capture the desires of consumers and wireless carriers.

Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that T-Mobile could sell 400,000 phones this year, giving Google about 4 per cent of the U S market for “smart” phones, a category dominated by Research in Motion (R I M) Ltd’s BlackBerry phones with tough competition from Apple Inc’s iPhone, Palm Inc’s Treos and Centros and various phones running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software.

The new phone, called the G1 according to T-Mobile’s invitation, is widely expected to be a design from HTC Corp of Taiwan.

The LiMo Foundation is behind one of the developments that has undermined the prospects for Android in the last year. In May, Verizon Wireless said LiMo, or Linux Mobile, would be the “preferred” software for its phones, starting next year. Like Android, LiMo is based on Linux computer software, and is given away free to phone makers.

While Google has tried to broaden its base by creating an Open Handset Alliance, Android is still very much identified as its project, and a “Google” brand on the phone will strengthen that image.

When it comes to getting carriers interested in Android, Google has an advantage its competitors lack: a world-beating advertising system that turned it into a multibillion-dollar company in the space of a few years. If Android can translate Google’s success in Web advertising to the phone, carriers could get a cut of the revenue.