Google now bets on Android instead of Gphone

Google has unveiled an ambitious strategy that will make cellphones cheaper and speed up internet surfing.

According to a Business Standard report, Google’s Director of Mobile Platforms, Andy Rubin, said in a telephonic conversation from the US that the new platform called Android should reduce the prices of today’s $500 smart phones to around $100-150 in a year or so. “If there’s ever a Gphone, it will be built on the Android platform,” he said.

Smart phones are cell phones that run business applications like documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Android includes a new browser and Linux operating system (OS) which will compete with platforms such as Apple’s OS X (Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on the board of Apple) on the iPhone, the BlackBerry OS, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and the Palm OS.

While there had been widespread reports that Google would announce alliances to create its own handsets - potentially even carrying the Google brand - it instead laid out a strategy that will give it a background role.

The announcement however is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the media has been speculating about over the past few weeks.

Google has partnered with 34 technology and mobile companies — under the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) — to develop Android.

The names include the likes of Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile (but not Nokia and Microsoft).

The name of Bharti Airtel too has been doing the rounds, but Rubin did not want to discuss specific companies.

He also declined to comment on whether its India centre had any part to play in the platform’s development.