US carriers divided over Android's merits

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Mobile Industry & Technology Journalist - freelance

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US carriers divided over Android's merits

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 30 October, 2008

Google's Android platform will remain a one-device wonder until next year, but it has gained significant credibility from Motorola's decision to focus its smartphone strategy on the Linux-based system, not Symbian. In the US, though, carriers are divided over Android's charms. T-Mobile has raised the profile of its rapidly expanding 3G network by being the first to launch the HTC-made G1, and Verizon Wireless is now showing strong interest, but Sprint - despite close ties with Google for the Xohm venture - says Android is currently not good enough to be associated with the Sprint brand.

According to an interview with Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse, the operator will not launch an Android phone on its CDMA network any time soon - possibly a blow for Motorola, which counts the operator as a major customer. Hesse told Information Week that the Google system is "not good enough to put the Sprint brand on", even though his company is a founder member of the Android supporters' club, Open Handset Alliance.

Hesse did not go into details about the weaknesses in Android, though he did say he thought Sprint would have phones based on the platform "at some time in the future". The Xohm offshoot of Sprint has been more enthusiastic about Google, which is its key software partner, working on (presumably Android-based) interfaces and developer programs for the WiMAX-based network. Android devices are expected to reach Xohm in mid to late 2009, and HTC, which is preparing a WiMAX version of its Windows-based Touch, is also said to be readying an Android device for WIMAX.

Taking a more positive view is Verizon Wireless, which is stepping up its painful moves towards open access and sees Android phones as an enabler of this strategy. Verizon has blown hot and cold over Android since it was initially mooted, but CEO Lowell McAdam now says the time is right to get behind the open source platform. "We're planning on using Android," he told BusinessWeek. "Android is an enabler of what we do." Unlike T-Mobile and Sprint, Verizon and AT&T steered clear of joining the Open Handset Alliance when it launched a year ago, and McAdam says now that his company preferred to examine the software in detail and be sure it was robust, rather than "get into that press release" for marketing reasons (a lesson it seems Sprint might now learn). But now, Verizon is converted, saying it will drive huge numbers of new applications, which in turn will make its open access strategy viable and attract a new breed of web-savvy subscribers (at little cost to the operator, since there will be no subsidies). "Clearly the Android system gives a lot of developers the opportunity to develop applications for a wide range of handsets," McAdam says. "I think we could be at an inflection point."