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Report: Verizon, T-Mobile to offer Motorola Android smartphones

Motorola is hoping Android will help it win a greater slice of the cell phone market, according to The Wall Street Journal. The devices are due by the end of the year.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney

Verizon and T-Mobile USA plan to offer Motorola smartphones running Google's Android operating system by the end of the year, according to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.

Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Journal said the new phones stem from efforts by Motorola Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha to revive the company's sluggish handset division. Motorola is hoping Android will help it win a greater slice of the cell phone market.

A Motorola representative declined to comment to the Journal. However, the report said a person familiar with the proposed T-Mobile smartphone described it as having a touch screen with a slide-out keyboard. The Android operating system will offer built-in social networking from providers such as Facebook and Twitter, the person added.

T-Mobile currently has two phones on the market running Android. The company debuted its G1 smartphone last year and recently announced a second phone, the myTouch, to hit stores in August.

Verizon has said it plans to support Android phones that would be available later this year but hasn't revealed further details.