Google Android: An Emerging Software Platform For Mobile Devices

Mobile phone usage has been increasing dramatically over the last several years. Globally, if a usage comparison can be carried out between PCs and mobile devices. Mobile devices have approximately 3.5 times more usage than PCs. But cell phone in today’s society is not only a tool for making call and writing SMS, but it’s a personal item which provides entertainment and information. There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can’t access on their cell phone. The increasing importance of mobile devices has triggered intense competition among technology giants, like Symbian, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Nokia in a bid to capture the bigger market share for mobile platform. So Google launched Android, an open source software platform for mobile devices consisting of an operating system, middleware and key applications. Since its official public release, Android has captured the interest from companies, developers and the general audience. This paper intends to explore different perspectives, features & suitability of android for mobile devices & comparison between Android, Symbian & Windows mobile OS