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Two years after Google announced Android, phone manufacturers are launching devices with the mobile operating system, and carriers are lining up to sell them.

In the past couple of months, nine devices using Google's mobile operating system have been announced. The pipeline is full of more Android devices, some that are confirmed and some that are still rumored to be in development.

U.S. wireless operators are also jumping on the Google Android bandwagon. Up to now, T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the four nationwide carriers, had been the only U.S. wireless operator to offer Android devices. But T-Mobile won't be alone for much longer. Starting next week, Sprint Nextel will introduce the HTC Hero, its first Android phone. Verizon Wireless will get two Google Android phones in the coming weeks. Even AT&T is expected to have a Google Android phone soon.

More headlines

Adobe pushes Flash video on mobile devices

Adobe garners the support of Google, Palm, and Motorola for its new Flash software for smartphones, smartbooks, Netbooks, and other mobile devices.
•  Adobe tries keeping Flash in Web vanguard
•  Adobe Flash apps come to iPhone--sort of
•  Adobe spells out iPhone apps limitations

AT&T to allow VoIP iPhone apps on 3G network

AT&T and Apple clear the way for iPhone users to begin using VoIP apps on its wireless network.
•  Vonage app available for iPhone, BlackBerry
•  Telus, Bell to get the iPhone in Canada

Microsoft introduces 'Starter' version of Office

Ad-supported, limited-feature version of Office will come preloaded on certain new PCs to take the place of Microsoft Works.

Google: Computer memory flakier than expected

After studying most of its servers for more than two years, Google finds that computer memory failures are much more common than expected and debunks some other myths.

Amazon goes global with new Kindle

The new edition of the e-book reader that can wirelessly download books in more than 100 countries. Also: a price cut for U.S. consumers.
•  B&N e-book reader reportedly in the works

Did Viacom find smoking gun in YouTube case?

YouTube's internal e-mails indicate employees and managers knew about copyright content, sources say, but chose to leave the material on the site. What are the DMCA ramifications?
•  Schmidt: We paid $1 billion premium for YouTube

IBM Research jumps into genetic sequencing

Big Blue hopes its electronic automation technology will give people and their doctors individual genetic records for less than $1,000.

FTC to bloggers: Fess up or pay up

A fine of up to $11,000 awaits bloggers who don't reveal paid reviews or free products, in the first revision to the FTC's disclosure guidelines in three decades.
•  Yes, new FTC guidelines extend to Facebook fan pages

Facebook's mounting customer service crisis

It's unclear how many members still can't access their accounts after Facebook acknowledged a database issue, but one thing's for sure: the ones locked out are steaming mad.
•  Something is clogging the Twitter stream!

At Ceatec 2009, a starring role for 3D

The long-awaited 3D technology may finally be on its way to the living room--and it could also be headed to the operating room.
•  Full coverage of Ceatec

Also of note

•  Phished or not, leaked passwords show lazy habits
•  RealNetworks set to file appeal in RealDVD case
•  Lego devotees flock to Seattle

The Android operating system is a step closer to being embedded in consumer electronics, after the company behind the MIPS processor architecture open-sourced the code for its Android port.

MIPS Technologies released the source code on Monday, two months after it first said it had ported Android to the 32-bit version of the MIPS architecture. This architecture is used in set-top boxes, digital TV sets, home media players, Internet telephony systems and mobile internet devices (MIDs), and is a rival to the ARM technology on which Android already runs.

"Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing Internet connectivity and a broad range of applications to MIPS-based digital home devices," MIPS Technologies' vice president of marketing, Art Swift, said in a statement. "We are working closely with customers and partners to ensure that critical technologies are available for developers to take advantage of Android for consumer electronics."

MIPS Technologies and its partners--including chipmakers, manufacturers and working groups within the Android-focused Open Embedded Software Foundation--have already demonstrated Android running on a home media player and on a digital TV reference design. They plan to demonstrate more applications for the platform over the coming months.

Android was unveiled as a smartphone platform by its main sponsor, Google, at the end of 2007. Since then, it has started to take off in the handset market, with several manufacturers releasing phones using the system this year. Work is also under way to release low-cost Android Netbooks later this year, although Google is also planning a separate operating system, Chrome OS, for this market.

The move into embedded systems therefore opens up Android's third front--after mobile phones and the desktop--against Microsoft's Windows, the embedded version of which is Windows CE.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Amid markedly lower sales and sluggish demand for its cell phones, Motorola saw a dramatic boost in earnings for the second quarter.

The company on Thursday reported net profit of $26 million, or 1 cent a share, for the quarter ended July 4, compared with $4 million for 2008's second quarter.

The jump in earnings surprised analysts, who had expected a loss of 4 cents a share, and Motorola itself, which had forecast a loss of 3 cents to 5 cents per share.

Quarterly sales fell to $5.5 billion, a drop of 32 percent from $8.1 billion a year ago. Analysts had been eyeing sales of $5.6 billion.

Ih the coming months, Motorola is hoping to make a dent in the smartphone market. "We have agreements in place with carriers and remain on track to bring our new smartphone devices to market for the holiday selling season," Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Mobile Devices, said in a statement. "We are also excited about our 2010 portfolio and are pleased with the customer feedback."

ZDNet's Larry Dignan noted the company's expectation of good results from tapping Google's Android software, which, Jha said, "will get us back in the game in smartphones."

"We will have two Android devices (for the holidays in the U.S.)," said Jha, adding that deals are already in place with two major carriers with more to follow. "We also have plans for more devices in the first quarter of 2010."

Facing a competitive cell phone market and the lack of exciting new products, the company has been struggling over the past couple of years. Motorola's popular Razr was unveiled in 2004. Since then, the company has failed to come up with a device hot enough to compete effectively with smartphones from companies such as iPhone maker Apple.

During the second quarter, Motorola said it sold 14.8 million mobile phones, up slightly from 14.7 million in the first quarter but down from the 28 million units it sold a year earlier. Second-quarter sales for the mobile device division plummeted 45 percent to $1.8 billion.

To stay afloat, the company has been on a cost-cutting frenzy since last year, which contributed to the quarterly earnings gain.

In December, Motorola said it would trim compensation packages for all employees. Then in January, it announced staff layoffs of 4,000, around 6 percent of its entire workforce.

For the third quarter, Motorola is expecting anywhere from a loss of 1 cent per share to a gain of 1 cent per share. "We will further improve earnings in the second half of the year," said Jha on a conference call to announce the second-quarter results.

Intel is endorsing Google's future Chrome operating system, but the chipmaker is being cautious as it already has a successful strategy supplying chips for Windows-based mobile devices.

Last week, makers of processors based on the ARM design, such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, were quick to cheer the news of Google's Chrome, which is slated to first appear on Netbooks in 2010.

"We're thrilled about the news that Google just issued," Ramesh Iyer, TI's head of worldwide business development for mobile computing, said last week. "You can see how simple the user interface is and how easy it is to access stuff," he said, referring to current Google applications available on the Web. "Think of (Chrome) as the next-gen of all of that."

Intel was more guarded in its statements. "We welcome Google's move," said Intel spokeswoman Claudine Mangano, but added: "We try to ensure Intel processors run on a variety of software." Chrome is slated to launch simultaneously on both ARM and Intel processors.

Though Intel is officially software agnostic, unofficially its chips are inextricably linked with Microsoft's Windows software as the hardware half of the most popular hardware-software PC platform on earth. And Intel's Atom is already the processor of choice for the most popular Netbooks worldwide from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, and others.

Atom will hold more than an 80 percent share of the 23.5 million Netbooks sold in 2009, according to a report released Monday by the Information Network, a New Tripoli, Pa.-based market research company.

Most of those Netbooks run Windows--which Google is looking to displace. "Consumers buying Netbooks so far have voted Windows," said Jeff Orr, senior analyst, mobile content, at ABI Research, in a phone interview.

The ARM chip camp is hoping to link its processors with Google in much the same way Intel is associated with Microsoft's popular Windows software. "Coming from the ARM side, they lack a Windows XP, Windows 7 solution," Orr said.

ARM processors are supplied by chip manufacturers Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, among others, and power devices such as the Palm Pre and T-Mobile Android smartphones, respectively. The Information Network projects that the ARM processor will gain a 55 percent market share of the 96 million Netbooks sold in 2012.

But for the foreseeable future, Netbooks will run Windows on top of Intel's Atom processor. And for those few Netbooks not running Windows, Intel is hedging its bets. The world's largest chipmaker also showed, as part of a technology demonstration, an Atom-based Netbook running Google's Android operating system at Computex.

Android running on devices at Computex was "snappy," while Windows 7 less so, according to a Gartner report published Monday. The report concluded that there is momentum behind the ARM chip platform.

"Android is the first Linux OS backed by a strong consumer brand--Google," write analysts Christian Heidarson and Ben Lee in Gartner's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.

Though they stopped short of endorsing the platform--saying that Android is a work-in-progress--they did offer some hope for future Android-based devices running on ARM processors versus Windows 7-based Netbooks running on Intel's Atom processor. "There is a sense among PC manufacturers that although Android is not ready for prime time today--or tomorrow--it will inevitably get there," they wrote.

The report continued. "When Android did work, we found that the user interface was very snappy on relatively low-performance ARM processors, more so than on Windows 7 on (Intel's) Atom. What we learned about support from critical software vendors convinced us that there is momentum behind ARM in the PC industry, enabled by Android."

In an interview last month, Michael Rayfield, general manager of the mobile business unit at graphics chipmaker Nvidia, echoed this sentiment. "Android has got a roar ahead of it," he said. But he added: "I think it's three of four quarters from a large-screen device." Nvidia is developing its ARM-based Tegra chip platform for Android as well as Windows CE.

Other chipmakers such as Freescale Semiconductor are also touting the potential for Android on ARM-based chips. "The potential that Google has--this has got everybody's attention," said Glen Burchers, director of global consumer segment marketing at Freescale, in an interview last month.

The Gartner report was cited earlier by IDG News.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wants to see Java on a lot more devices, particularly mobile phones and Netbooks. Whether or not the combined Oracle/Sun builds such devices, Ellison expects to pour more money and research into Java's development.

The tech community has been wondering what will happen to Java now that its new parent will be Oracle, courtesy of the database giant's impending $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems, which is expected to close this summer.

At Tuesday's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, Ellison made a surprise appearance on stage, where he spoke with Sun Chairman Scott McNealy about Java's future.

"I think you'll see us get very aggressive in developing Java apps for things like telephones and Netbooks," said Ellison. He added that he's been reading a lot about mobile devices, including those running Google's Android operating system, that make use of Java. He's looking for greater development of mobile applications using Sun's JavaFX Mobile platform, which is optimized to run on cell phones and Netbooks.

Ellison highlighted Java-based cell phones and netbooks running Android as key areas to target and hinted that Oracle/Sun may want to enter that arena directly. "I can see lots and lots of Java devices, some coming from our friends at Google," said Ellison. "But I don't see why some of those devices shouldn't come from Sun/Oracle."

Hardware makers that have already unveiled or announced phones and Netbooks based on Android include Acer, HTC, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

Ellison threw his full support behind Java, reminding the crowd at JavaOne that Oracle's middleware makes good use of Java. He called it an "attractive platform" because of its openness and the ability to extend it. "Everything that sits on top of our database--all our products--are Java-based," he said. He added that Oracle's whole next generation of business applications is built entirely on Java.

When asked by McNealy about the future of Java in general, Ellison said, "Sun has done a fantastic job inventing Java, expanding Java, opening up Java, giving Java to the world, and we're going to do more of the same." He noted that Oracle has invested heavily in Java in the past and believes that investment will continue and even accelerate. "We see increased investment in Java coming from the Sun/Oracle combination," he said.

The full exchange between Ellison and McNealy is available below.

Acer announced on Tuesday a version of its Aspire One Netbook that will run the Android operating system.

The manufacturer made the announcement at the Computex show in Taiwan, promising a release for the Android-based Netbook in the third quarter. Android was originally intended as a platform for smartphones, but recent months have seen great interest in porting the system over to small, cheap sub-notebooks.

"Netbooks are designed to be compact in size and easy to connect to the Internet wherever you go," Jim Wong, Acer's president of IT products, said in a statement. "The Android operating system offers incredibly fast wireless connection to the internet; for this reason, Acer has decided to develop Android Netbooks for added convenience to our customers."

The Taiwanese manufacturer said the majority of Acer Netbooks will come with Android as an alternative operating system to Microsoft's Windows.

"Acer believes the Android operating system will contribute significantly to the worldwide Netbook market growth," the company said in the statement.

Just a few months ago, Acer executives said that Android wasn't ready for use in Netbooks.

On Monday, Acer also announced it is formally joining the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), the Google-led consortium overseeing the development of the Android platform. The company now plans to release an Android-based smartphone in the fourth quarter.

Acer only entered the smartphone market in February, when it showed off several Windows Mobile-based devices.

Rival handset manufacturers that have already brought out, or are scheduled to bring out, Android smartphones, include HTC, Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Nvidia has its own grand scheme for Netbooks, the tiny laptops that have gained wide acceptance running on software and hardware from Microsoft and Intel, respectively.

At the giant Computex conference starting Tuesday in Taiwan, Nvidia will be showing hardware running on its Tegra processor and Windows CE, the version of Windows used most prominently to date in business-use handheld computers. And, down the road, Nvidia has high hopes for devices based on Google's Android.

Tegra is a system-on-a-chip that integrates a processor based on a design from U.K.-based ARM and Nvidia's GeForce graphics silicon, among other functions. The goal is to bring robust PC-like graphics to small devices such as Netbooks and handheld devices--the latter also referred to as mobile Internet devices.

In a break from Computex tradition, Nvidia will have phone companies in tow. "We're bringing the carriers in. I've got 100 people showing up from carriers at Computex," Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit, said in a phone interview Friday.

Tegra will be shown at the trade show in devices that manufacturers "are about ready to release into production," Rayfield said.

"The Internet is all about (Adobe) flash and HD (high-definition) now so we've built a platform that can do that," he said. "There are two operating systems we support. Microsoft Windows CE and, as it becomes more interesting for large screens, (Google) Android," Rayfield said.

"We do Android for smartphones and we're working to do hardware acceleration on Android as it goes to larger displays," Rayfield said. In February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nvidia announced that it is working with Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get its Tegra processor into phones based on Google's Android operating system.

Android will likely appear commercially in larger devices, such as Netbooks, by the middle of next year, Rayfield said. "Android, as it stands now, does not do hardware acceleration," he said, referring to graphics-based acceleration of video and other multimedia applications. "We've already got 720p acceleration on Android internally," he said. 720p is a lower-resolution standard for high-definition video.

Rayfield continued. "Android has got a roar ahead of it but I think it's three of four quarters from a large-screen device. And the market wants something interesting before that."

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In open source or in product development generally, one of the biggest mistakes is to take on a deeply entrenched incumbent on its own turf. Almost inevitably, if you play someone else's game, even if you're a little cheaper/faster/better, you're going to lose. Inertia favors the incumbent, and there's a whole lot of inertia involved in switching vendors.

For this reason, I agree wholeheartedly with Bill Weinberg's suggestion that Linux's opportunity in Netbooks is to focus on the mobile side of the market, rather than bringing a traditional, personal computer bent to the market.

Weinberg writes:

...(O)ne strategic error made by purveyors of Linux Netbooks was to covet the volumes of the global mobile telephony market while following the business models and channels of the legacy notebook marketplace. Linux fans--.orgs, Linux ISVs, and device OEMS--unfortunately approached the Netbook opportunity as a downward extension of the desktop and portable PC business, with volumes of 297M units in 2008 (IDC).

Instead, the Linux ecosystem needs to envision Netbooks (and MIDs and tablets) as building on the worldwide mobile handset business, with its 1.28B annual unit shipments (Gartner) the most lucrative slice of which, smartphones, constitutes 14 percent (ABI) with 20 percent annual growth rates.

Microsoft owns the traditional personal computer market, and probably will forever. But don't lose hope: the best strategies going forward are disruptive, in the Clayton Christensen sense. Microsoft is weak in mobile. This is where Linux proponents should focus their "desktop" strategies.

Apple is gaining on Microsoft in personal computers as much because of its iPhone revolution as its beautiful laptops. If Linux wants to win in Netbooks, and it can, it must do so by undermining Microsoft, not by confronting its desktop dominance directly. Netbooks must be more "Net" than "book," just as mobile phones are more about "mobile" than "phone."

If this is true, Google's Android, which is targeting smartphones first and Netbooks second, may have the upper hand on Intel's Moblin, which aims at Netbooks first, and is largely designed as a Windows replacement.

Malcolm Gladwell recently reminded the world that David beats Goliath with a sling, not a sword. Linux-based Netbooks, playing David to Microsoft's Goliath, should approach the market with a mobile bias, rather than with a personal computer bias.

"Hit 'em where they ain't," said Willie Keeler, which is as true in hitting baseballs as it is in competing with Microsoft.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.