After months of media-built hype, the mythical "gPhone" was unveiled this week as Android, a Linux-based software stack for building mobile phones. Despite the disappointment, Android might be just what the market needs, if the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) can actually get an open stack shipping on real devices.

Weeks after Google revealed aspirations of creating a defacto standard operating system for mobile phones, via Android and the Open Handset Alliance, a lesser known, broad-based consortium has published what it hopes can serve as an actual standard for Linux-based phones...
The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS)

Vodafone's plans to distribute a phone based on the LiMo Platform spec remain on track, despite joining the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which oversees the rival Google-sponsored Android stack, says eWEEK. Yet momentum in the Linux mobile arena may have shifted to Android, the story suggests.

Fourteen new companies including Sony Ericsson have joined the Open Handset Alliance, the group backing Google's Android mobile operating system. The total number of companies in the alliance now totals 47.

One of China's largest handset and infrastructure vendors has reportedly adopted a Linux-based mobile phone software stack as part of its standard 3G mobile phone operating system. ZTE will incorporate Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition into its Linux-based "U980" platform for 3G TD-CDMA phones, according to Trolltech.

Android 2.0 (formerly codenamed 'Éclair') is the latest evolution of the mobile OS developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. This version is a chunky upgrade, superceding the current Android 1.6 software (dubbed 'Donut'), which was actually considered "a minor platform release".

"Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we're not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing -- the Open Handset Alliance and Android -- is more significant and ambitious than a single phone..."

On Nov. 5, Google unveiled what many in the phone business had long awaited. CEO Eric Schmidt explained how the search giant was ready to create new software for mobile phones that would shake up the telecom status quo.

While Google and its Open Handset Alliance partners would have us believe that it's all about the customer, the Android open source mobile platform is as much about preventing Microsoft, Symbian and Palm from taking up the top position in the mobile operating system space.