Google denies Android phones delayed

Google denied a report on Monday that phones using its Android software have been delayed until 2009.

TheStreet.com reported the delay, citing an unnamed source, but Google issued a statement denying the report.

"We're still on track to announce Android-powered phones this year. Some of our partners are publicly stating that they plan to ship Android phones in the fourth quarter," Google said in a statement.

That comes as little surprise, given that Android project leader Andy Rubin said last week at the Google I/O conference that phones using the soon-to-be-mostly-open-source software will be "available in the second half of this year".

In February, T-Mobile chief executive Hamid Akhavan said the company plans to ship an Android phone later in 2008. T-Mobile confirmed on Monday that its Android-based phone is still on track to arrive in the fourth quarter.

One possible source of the confusion around Android could be that, although Google and various partners are collectively writing the Android software, Google is not the only one supporting it.

Android software overseen by Google will appear in the first Android phones, but Android software overseen by partner Wind River Systems will appear in later models, expected in the first quarter of 2009, said John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer of Linux seller and Android partner Wind River.

"[Google] did the first phone. They carefully handled it all the way through," Bruggeman said. "We've got the rest."

Wind River supports Linux in embedded computing devices, but will support the full Android software stack, which extends to higher-level software as well.

"When Android is open-sourced, we will support the entire stack," Bruggeman said. "We've ramped up our infrastructure. We are resourced to be able to support Android and not just Linux — the messaging and telephony and email and browsing."

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