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Android is certainly the mobile OS of the year, with Symbian4 and Windows Phone 7 still over the horizon. But the results its growing market share are delivering for Google are more mixed. While the search giant's interest in creating the OS was clearly to drive usage of its apps and services, more and more Android partners are straying from the path. Motorola - ironically given the close-knit alliance with Google of which both parties have boasted - is the worst culprit, and has deployed no fewer than three rival search engines on its Android phones, most recently Microsoft Bing.

Motorola has already launched handsets for China with the local search engine Baidu as the default, homescreen option. This was predictable given the strength of Baidu in the country and Google's tensions with Chinese authorities - handset makers will not risk Chinese launches by seeming to tie their phones to closely to the Google apps. But then Motorola followed up with its first AT&T Android device, Backflip, which comes with Yahoo preloaded - probably at the carrier's request, as AT&T seeks to differentiate its user experience from Verizon's more Google-oriented one.

And now the deepest cut to Google - Motorola has turned to Microsoft to support Bing as a homescreen option on certain Android models. It will also use Microsoft services for mapping, probably the most important weapon being deployed in the mobile web war by both Google and Nokia.

The first Bing/Android devices will be for China, where the problems with a Google-fied homescreen are clear. But the alliance with Microsoft is a global one and Bing is likely to turn up in phones for many markets this year. Under the agreement, Motorola users get a preloaded Bing bookmark on their mobile browser and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration, plus Bing-powered map functions. For Droids and Cliqs that are already in use, or phones launched with other search engines preloaded, the software can be obtained as an over-the-air update or from Android Market.

Motorola said it was opening the doors for "increased personalization and empowering its end users", which could be taken as a sideswipe at Google's attempt to control the Android user experience tightly. First generation Android phones were heavily geared to the key Google apps on their homescreens, but as vendors gain confidence, and need to differentiate themselves, they are plowing their own furrows. HTC's applauded Sense user interface runs across Android and Windows, and has become less Google-centric with each release. That will concern Google, since the newest phone running Sense, the HTC Desire, is expected to outperform its own-branded Nexus One. Since the latter is also made by HTC, and is almost the same as the Desire in hardware terms, the UI is likely to be the deciding factor, allowing consumers (and operators) to vote with their feet against too much control by the search leader.

Motorola currently sells four Android phones in China and the new Bing models will launch this month.

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