The GSM selection ushered into China foreign network equipment and mobile phone vendors (Ericsson and Nokia, by holding important GSM patents, occupied an advantageous position for GSM network and handset development, which left Chinese firms in catch-up mode).
Otherwise developers would have to buy all these handsets to test their applications--a problem that Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) hopes to stamp out with its "Open Handset Alliance" and development platform.
Google hopes--though it will take a year or more to find out--that the economics of a cheaper, easily re-engineered handset will create a phone-development environment far different from today's proprietary closed models--in which a small number of service providers dictate to relatively few manufacturers what they want on their custom-designed models--and closer to the "fast and cheap" Internet design model.
In the end, American government and business lobbying had great benefits for the Japanese mobile subscriber (and development of a Japanese domestic handset industry and a new mobile contents business sector).
Nokia execs including Chief Executive Jorma Ollila indicated in the past that fuel cells were a promising area of development, and in 2004 the company demonstrated a handset powered by methanol, and said it could be available commercially by 2006.
More broadly, if manufacturers are struggling to keep their handset launch schedules in sync with Google's in-house development, it's no wonder that Android skins seem so unsympathetic to the green robot's natural complexion.
Symbian was formed by the leading handset makers, but it's unclear whether Sony's new development efforts with Matsushita will affect the Symbian relationship.
MT6575, allowing handset manufacturers to easily produce multiple tiers of devices leveraging a single PCBA hardware development effort.
ENGADGET: MediaTek MT6577 helps push dual-core Android 4.0 smartphones under $200 contract-free
Nokia also no longer can afford to lag behind in the U.S. market, a large and profitable handset market, in part because the U.S. has the leading software-development talent for mobile devices.
The Finnish handset maker has announced it may cut 6, 000 jobs, or 38% of its research and development staff, as it prepares to adopt the Windows Phone 7 mobile platform across all future smartphone offerings.
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