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It seems that Google is getting a crash course in “Too Many Cooks” as the warm fuzzy expectations for several Android-based phones hitting the market by the end of 2008 are meeting cold hard reality. Reports are that several of the service providers they were counting on to make big splashing releases this year can’t keep up with Google’s aggressive roadmap.

Reuters reports the following (sourcing from the WSJ)

Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA expects to deliver an Android-powered phone in the fourth period, but Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) will not be able to, a person familiar with the matter said, according to the Journal.

China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless carrier with nearly 400 million subscriber accounts, likely will have its launch delayed until late this year or early 2009, the Journal reported, citing sources.

Android also has not won broad support from large mobile-software developers, and some said it is hard to develop programs while Google makes changes as it finishes its own software, the Journal reported.

It seems that Google is still accepting feature implementation requests from developers at this late date, which is causing a lot of slippage in releasing the gold version of Android. If the OS is not finalized, then naturally everything gets delayed as no developer wants to release an application for an RC then have it broken by the final software.

This open, communal effort towards programming can work in a campus environment, even a ginormous campus as Google now is…but when there are multiple powerful companies each with their own roadmap and agendas, each pushing their own requirement, not so much. I know Google always loves to hear what I think, so my advice to them is to stop futzing and release already. Anything that is not ready now, leave for the first update. If they let it drag into 2009 before the first Android handsets actually appear they are going to lose a lot of the buzz they are counting on.

These days, windows of opportunity are small, even for Google.

Zealot (446 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).