Google Enters Cellphone Business With Launch Of Software For T-Mobile's Android Smart Phone

New York, NY (AHN) - Google is set to enter the cell phone business with the official launch Tuesday of its software platform to run T-Mobile USA's Android smart handheld unit.

A press conference in New York will be the launch pad for the phone, the G1 model. The event will also be seen via live blogging at its Live.AndroidCommunity.com portal 10:30 a.m EDT.

The smart phone will compete against the BlackBerry made by Research in Motion, Apple's iPhone, Palm's Treos and Centros and other models powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the G1 is expected to sell 400,000 units this year, which would provide Google and T-Mobile 4 percent of the American market for smart phones.

The G1 was designed by HTC Corporation of Taiwan, which manufactures also smart units with Windows Mobile software. It will have a touch screen and slide-out keyboard with the QWERTY arrangement.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the unit will retail for $199. Google's webpage did not have a price listing, but the portal said the G1 will be available by the end of October.

Google announced it will go into the mobile phone business a year ago. Competitors like the LiMo Foundation, are waiting for the Tuesday event to find out how different the G1 is from existing smart phones in the market.

"This is the right moment for Google to answer some of the big questions that have been outstanding since Android was announced almost a year ago," Morgan Gillis, executive director of Linux Mobile, was quoted as saying by the Houston Chronicle.

Linux Mobile will be the preferred software of Verizon Wireless smart phones about to be launched in 2009.