Hampus Jakobsson, Co-Founder of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) member, the Astonishing Tribe, noted: “There will be an explosion of new phone manufacturers,” he said. “This is going to be really positive, especially from a user’s point of view.” “The actual building of the phone is simple, as it has become more commoditized over the years. The trick is getting the phone to appeal to the target audience.” “Android and the OHA will enable more companies to do that.”

A week before that, Director of Mobile Platforms at Google, Andy Rubin stated that “… software represents roughly 20 percent of a handset’s manufacturing expenses, so embracing the free, open-source Android OS would effectively remove those costs from the equation.”

The Open Handset Alliance engaged in promoting Android is formed by 33 members such as the manufacturers of chips (Qualcomm), mobile phones (Motorola) and smartphones (HTC) as well as mobile carriers of America, Europe and Asia (Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel). It’s quite natural that a few large players have refrained from entering the alliance - for example, Nokia that don’t see great prospects for Android and produce Symbian-based devices, and AT&T - an exclusive partner of Apple presenting iPhone in the USA.