In August 2005 the search giant Google acquired the startup Android for Its Mobile Arsenal,
netting possibly a key player in its push into wireless, “the next frontier in search”.
Now two years later (in November 2007) Google announced their Open Handset Alliance:
Instead of using the standards-based Java Micro Edition (JME) as an engine to run Java applications, Google wrote its own virtual machine for Android, calling it Dalvik. There are technical advantages and disadvantages to using Dalvik, developers say, but technology may not have been the driver for Google.
Google most likely built Dalvik as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun that would have come with using JME, said Stefano Mazzocchi, a developer and board member at Apache Labs.
Phone makers that incorporate JME into their phones must license the technology from Sun if they intend to make any modifications to it, Mazzocchi said. A phone maker could freely use JME under an open source license if it shares innovations to the software with the community, but most large handset makers are reluctant to do that, he said.
Rather than require phone makers to license JME as part of Android, Mazzocchi said, Google built its own virtual machine. Dalvik converts Java bytecodes into Dalvik bytecodes.
Some might now ask “What about all the operators who’ve joined the alliance?”. Honestly, I have no idea. Why would carriers join a venture that proposes to finally give customers the advantage?. I really really hope that it will be open and that carriers won’t start removing bits and pieces of freedom.
Now since we’ve hit the subject of devices, apparently HTC will be the first to offer us one, somewhere in the first half of 2008. Palm, who’ve been trying to create their own linux-based mobile operating system but repeatedly failed to deliver, said they wouldn’t be switching to Android. They will, still, integrate Google applications in their devices.
- http://code.google.com/android/
- http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rYozIZOgDk
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