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Android supporters were crowing about the 14 new members of the Open Handset Alliance, which backs the Google technology, but particularly about the sign-up of Vodafone. Not only is the largest cellco by revenues hugely influential over handset makers in its choices of technologies, but it has previously been mainly focused, in terms of Mobile Linux, on the main real alternative to Android, LiMo.

Like AT&T - which is veering towards using open source Symbian as the standard software platform to underpin its own-branded webphones and mobile internet experience - Vodafone has also been searching for an operating system that was not controlled by one supplier, and on which it could create a highly differentiated, Vodafone branded web platform. Such experiences are likely to be among the key competitive advantages for operators in the open internet age.

This was the motivation for Vodafone to take a guiding hand in the formation of the LiMo Foundation, which now has 48 members and 15 handsets. But Vodafone's support for the OHA may signal that it is due to switch its allegiance to Android - which according to research group Ovum, has a far more convincing story than LiMo for developers, and is more likely to attract large numbers of applications as well as device makers.

There is one potential fly in the ointment for Vodafone, which needs to have full control of its own-branded platform - although Android is officially open, Google retains a large measure of influence in real life, and some operators have been concerned at how tightly the Google web services, like search, Maps and Gmail, are integrated into the first Android devices at homescreen level. It may take a carrier with the power of Vodafone to cut Google down to size a little in its new playground, and the cellco will not just be looking for exclusive devices, as T-Mobile got with the HTC G1, but its own choice of homecreen applications and web services.

However, Ovum's Adam Leach, in his AdamLeachReport blog, notes: "To achieve a fast time to market Vodafone will have to make some sacrifices; namely, it will have to provide access to Googles services via the default set of Android applications." This might be true of its first Android phones, but towards the end of 2009 or 2010, Vodafone would almost certainly use the open source licensing terms of the system to choose its own applications.

Leach also points to what could be a survival strategy for LiMo as it faces Android and the open Symbian - collaboration between Vodafone and the OHA to let Android runtimes run on LiMo handsets. This would achieve two goals dear to Voda's heart - diluting the power of any vendor likely to gain a position of control over the carrier's device decisions, and reducing fragmentation in the mobile OS/platform market.

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