After months of heavy speculation, Google entered the mobile applications market by unveiling Android, its new mobile software platform. The release came as a surprise to many who expected the release of the fabled gPhone, however it should come as no surprise that Google would finally release the Android platform in aquired in 2006 rather than attempt to enter the hardware market with just one product.

Google has assembled a large cooperation of companies who intend to support the Android platform, and the developers who now have a head start on developing software before the hardware handsets arrive in 2008. To help kickstart this effort, Google has announced 10 million dollars in funding for the leading developers on the new platform. This sort of goldrush will spark much interest from developers and companies around the world anxious to establish a presence in what could be a dominant new mobile platform.

Developers are encouraged to download the new SDK and to begin following the early tutorials that have been released. The Android platform intents to enable developers to leverage the mobile phone’s Phonebook, Camera, GPS, Mapping, Email, Web and Phone applications by easily swapping information between multiple swappable components in order to offer the user a familiar, cohesive and memory efficient mobile phone environment. This is a welcome change to Nokia users, familiar with a closed environment that doesn’t change outside of what Nokia offers - and for Treo users who can install applications that are not able to interact with one another or the parent operating system.