The Open Handset Alliance bills "Android" as the first comprehensive mobile operating platform that software developers are free to adapt in any ways they wish for video, audio, social networking and other features.
"We are developing a very open system and will distribute all the codes to allow people to innovate on mobile devices," Google co-founder Serge Brin said in a conference call with the press and other alliance members.
"I'm really excited about this and I can't wait to see what the next generation of innovators is able to do with these tools."
Kits for tailoring applications to Android will be in developers' hands in a week and the first phones built with the software platform are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2008, according to the alliance.
The 34-member alliance includes China Mobile, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Telefonica, LG and eBay.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt declined to reveal whether the US-based Internet search coloss