Report: Motorola expanding Android team
Cell phone maker is apparently in the midst of dramatically expanding the size of its Android team, according to TechCrunch.
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The talk of the tech town lately has been Android, Google's cell phone operating system. Last week, Google and T-Mobile showed off the forthcoming G1--the first phone that will be powered by the open platform.
But the plan was never about just one Google phone, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement last fall: "Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models." Thus, Google formed the Open Handset Alliance--big players in the wireless industry charged with helping form the development community for Android devices.
So it's not surprising that Motorola, one of the original members of the Open Handset Alliance, would be beefing up its ranks working on Android, according to a post on TechCrunch. Motorola reportedly has about 50 people on its current team but is expanding it to 350, according to the post. Its source is an Android developer who was contacted by a headhunter to become part of Motorola's team.
TechCrunch reported that the same source spotted Nokia and Verizon people at an Android developer conference not long ago, though neither company is listed as a member of the Open Handset Alliance.