Broadband Developments

Android is now open source.  Android will change the nature of communications and collaboration only if the apps get developed. The success of the Apple App store is a strong indicator that the Google Android marketplace for apps will be a home run.

Why? Two reasons: 1) apps are need on the edge of the network and 2) developers can succeed on this platform because of open source.

Android is the first free, open source, and fully customizable mobile platform. Android offers a full stack: an operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows third-party developers to develop great applications.

To get started with the source code, see Get source.

If you are an application developer, visit the Android SDK site.

Video of program is here

here is the info from Google on Android

Today is a big day for Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and the open-source community.  All of the work that we’ve poured into the mobile platform is now officially available, for free, as the Android Open Source Project.

You’ll be hearing a lot about Android devices.  We’ve all put a lot of effort into the first Android device, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  But one device is just the beginning.

Android is not a single piece of hardware; it’s a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations.  Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications.  And with an Android device already on the market, it has proven that it has what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena.

Even if you’re not planning to ship a mobile device any time soon, Android has a lot to offer.  Interested in working on a speech-recognition library?  Looking to do some research on virtual machines?  Need an out-of-the-box embedded Linux solution?  All of these pieces are available, right now, as part of the Android Open Source Project, along with graphics libraries, media codecs, and some of the best development tools I’ve ever worked with.

Have a great idea for a new feature?  Add it!  As an open source project, the best part is that anyone can contribute to Android and influence its direction.  And if the platform becomes as ubiquitous as I hope it will, you may end up influencing the future of mobile devices as a whole.

This is an exciting time for Android, and we’re just getting started.  It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes in the mobile industry.  But we want to do more than just keep up;  we want to lead the way, to try things out, to add the new features that everyone else is scrambling to keep up with.  But we can’t do it without your help.

What will you do with Android?