On thisday November 5 2007 2007 Android mobile operating system is unveiled by Google. Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California 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". The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras. Though, when it was realized that the market for the devices was not large enough, the company diverted its efforts toward producing a smartphone operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile.[28] Despite the past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly, revealing only that it was working on software for mobile phones.[13] 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.
In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million, whose key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, stayed at the company after the acquisition.[11][13] Not much was known about Android Inc. at the time, but many assumed that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market with this move.[13] 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.[30][31][32]
Speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile communications market continued to build through December 2006.[33] An earlier prototype codenamed "Sooner" had a closer resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen, and a physical, QWERTY keyboard, but was later re-engineered to support a touchscreen, to compete with other announced devices such as the 2006 LG Prada and 2007 Apple iPhone.[34][35] In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony.[36][37]
On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such asHTC, Sony and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop open standards for mobile devices.[14] That day, Android was unveiled as its first product, a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel.[14][38] The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, released on October 22, 2008.
TBT; makes it 8 years.
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