Google phone Nexus One launch could make 2010 year of Android

Speculations are rife that Nexus One, which is being made by Taiwanese technology company HTC - with Google overseeing design and development - will be unveiled as early as January 5 when the internet giant holds an "Android press gathering" at its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Though Google has not officially said that it would showcase Nexus One in the January 5 gathering, the company said it would hold a "press gathering" next Tuesday to showcase Android and demonstrate new products to show "how a powerful, open platform can spur mobile product innovation," giving the strongest indication yet that the Nexus One's release could be imminent.

Nexus One generated massive interest in the past one month with several tech blogs claiming that the device is being tested currently by Google employee and its January launch could herald Google's entry into the high-margin, highly competitive smartphone market.

Moreover, Nexus One is not just another smartphone because it is possibly the first smartphone to the launched that will run on the latest generation Android 2.1 platform (2009's bestsellers Motorola Droid and HTC Hero run on Android 2.0 and Android ).

Besides, Nexus One boasts of 'I am an iPhone-killer' specs such as the blazing fast Qualcomm QSD82350 (Snapdragon) 1GHz processor; a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen; and a 5-megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom, autofocus and LED flash; and other bells and whistles such as a microSD card slot (expandable up to 32GB, Nexus One will reportedly ship with 4GB card); 512MB RAM; WiFi; 3G; GPRS; EDGE; A-GPS (with Google Maps); accelerometer sensor; proximity sensor; ambient light sensor; onscreen Qwerty keyboard; digital compass; microUSB port; 3.5mm audio jack and a user changeable battery.

But don't get me wrong. It's not that Android will upstage Apple's proprietary iPhone OS and Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform overnight. In fact, compared to iPhone OS and WinMo, Android's share of the US smartphone market is relatively small. However, it has doubled in the past year to 3.5 percent in October, according to comScore and with the number of US telecom carriers and manufacturers, who have been adopting Google's open-source Android software in bids to challenge the Apple iPhone and Blackberry from Research in Motion (RIM), growing everyday, 2010 could well be Android's year.

And, according to Forrester Research analyst Michele Pelino, Android's popularity will not be confined to general consumers.

"As we head into 2010, expect Android smartphones to capture the attention of corporate smartphone users," Pelino said, predicting that 10 percent of enterprises to manage or support Android-based next year.

"Why? Heavy industry support from Qualcomm and jointly developed devices from Verizon, Motorola, and Google, as well as the open nature of the Android platform let in-house and third-party application developers easily create new applications and integrate them with enterprise apps," he wrote in a Dec. 18 note.