No sooner had I posted the story about Voxeo acquiring Motorola’s VoiceXML gateway IP and operations, a steady stream of comments from the MotoDev Summit 2009 in San Diego dramatized how serious Motorola is in nurturing a robust developer network for its Android-based phones. If you have the bandwidth (attention) you can follow the hashtag #mds2009 on Twitter.

Moto is not alone in its efforts to foster innovation on the Android platform. Elsewhere around the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association’s Internet and Entertainment Expo (CTIA-IE) Verizon made a huge splash by announcing a the intent to act as partners in a venture chartered to co-develop devices that run a broad spectrum of applications on the Android operating system.

In front of the press and in the presence of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless (VZW) made it clear that it sees an advantage to making both its network and devices fully “open.” That means that, unlike Apple and AT&T, Verizon will provide its subscribers full access to the call management and messaging features of Google Voice through Android phones. While Verizon and Google will collaborate on the specification, it is broadly believed that the usual list of OEMs and ODMs will actually make them. That means that Verizon will continue to distribute the smartphones from HTC, Motorola, Samsung and a few others as they introduce Android-based devices.

Schmidt and McAdam also made the right noises about fostering activity among third-party developers. Pledging that the devices will ship with easy access to an AppStore that has more than 10,000 titles. Coupled with all the activity among the MotoDev Summit attendees, as well as the formal launch of Windows Phone, we continue to wonder how application developers will decide how to allocate their resources for design, development and support of popular apps across so many platforms.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Recombinant Telephony, Google, smartphones, Verizon Wireless, Motorola, Android, mobile applications