History
Foundation
Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United
States in October, 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger),Rich Miner
(co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.),Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile),and
Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV) to develop, in
Rubin's words "...smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its
owner's location and preferences". Despite the obvious past accomplishments
of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly, revealing
only that it was working on software for mobile phones.That same year, Rubin
ran out of money. Steve Perlman, a close friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000
in cash in an envelope and refused a stake in the company.
Acquisition by Google
Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making
Android Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google Inc. Key employees of Android
Inc., including Andy Rubin, Rich Miner and Chris White, stayed at the company
after the acquisition.Not much was known about Android Inc. at the time of the
acquisition, but many assumed that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone
market with this move.
Post-acquisition development
At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device
platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset
makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradable system.
Google had lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and
signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation on
their part
Speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile
communications market continued to build through December 2006.Reports from the
BBC and The Wall Street Journal noted that Google wanted its search and
applications on mobile phones and it was working hard to deliver that. Print
and online media outlets soon reported rumors that Google was developing a
Google-branded handset. Some speculated that as Google was defining technical
specifications, it was showing prototypes to cell phone manufacturers and
network operators.
In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve
study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area
of mobile telephony.
Open Handset Alliance
Main article: Open Handset Alliance
On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium
of several companies which include Broadcom Corporation, Google, HTC, Intel,
LG, Marvell Technology Group, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics,
Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Texas Instruments unveiled itself. The goal of the
Open Handset Alliance is to develop open standards for mobile devices.On the
same day, the Open Handset Alliance also unveiled their first product, Android,
a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel version 2.6.
On December 9, 2008,
14 new members joined, including ARM Holdings, Atheros Communications, Asustek
Computer Inc, Garmin Ltd, Huawei Technologies, PacketVideo, Softbank, Sony
Ericsson, Toshiba Corp, and Vodafone Group Plc.
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