Today at O’Reilly ETech conference, Dan Morrill of Google talked about Android. Even though it’s more or less a marketing session, I think it’s good to hear about Android from the house’s mouth, so to speak.

There are more than 3 billion mobile phone worldwide. In Europe, there are more mobile phones than people. Guess that’s enough reason for Google to start a OS on mobile platform.

According to Dan, Android is a complete modern embedded OS,  provides cutting edge mobile user experience, comes with world class software stack for building app and is a open platform for developers, users and industry.

Dan mentioned that the Web is like gold rush. The reasons the web is a gold rush are:
   open platform
   easy dev model
   easy distribution model
   ubiquity

Android is exact the same as above.

With Android, all apps can integrate deeply with the system, don’t need anyone’s persimmon to deploy an app and the developers can replace the entire look and feel, which is open a big aftermarket for creative thinkers.

It’s easy to build Android apps because:
   declarative UI layouts (similar to HTML)
   application code manipulates the UI
   not just “AJAX on a phone”: full-featured platform
   optimized for mobile

Android give freedom to integrate:
   Android provides a client platform but how you integrate with your service is up to you
   data representations: JSON, XML, custom,..
   Webb API: GData, SOAP, XML-RPC, SOA…
   server-side technologies: java, .net, lamp, rails…

Android is easy distribution:
   no onerous certifications for apps or developers
   multiple routes on the device: browser, SD card, USB connection to PC

Android is beyond ubiquity: always on, always with you. Android is link to the cloud that fits in your pocket.

SDK maturity? There is no alpha or beta version to avoid expectation. Not for building business on current SDK. The current SDK is just to give developers exposure.

Money for Google? Money is not a high priority for Google.