History of android

Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto,
California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-
founder of Danger), [31] Rich Miner (co-
founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.),
[32] Nick Sears[33] (once VP at T-Mobile ), and
Chris White (headed design and interface
development at WebTV )[13] to develop, in
Rubin's words "smarter mobile devices that
are more aware of its owner's location and
preferences". [13] The early intentions of the
company were to develop an advanced
operating system for digital cameras , when it
was realised that the market for the devices
was not large enough, and diverted their
efforts to producing a smartphone operating
system to rival those of Symbian and
Windows Mobile (Apple's iPhone had not
been released at the time). [34] Despite the
past accomplishments of the founders and
early employees, Android Inc. operated
secretly, revealing only that it was working on
software for mobile phones. [13] That same
year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman ,
a close friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000
in cash in an envelope and refused a stake in
the company. [35]
Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17,
2005, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of
Google. Key employees of Android Inc.,
including Rubin, Miner and White, stayed at
the company after the acquisition. [13] Not
much was known about Android Inc. at the
time, but many assumed that Google was
planning to enter the mobile phone market
with this move. [13] At Google, the team led
by Rubin developed a mobile device platform
powered by the Linux kernel . Google
marketed the platform to handset makers
and carriers on the promise of providing a
flexible, upgradable system. Google had lined
up a series of hardware component and
software partners and signaled to carriers
that it was open to various degrees of
cooperation on their part. [36][37][38]
Speculation about Google's intention to enter
the mobile communications market continued
to build through December 2006. [39] Reports
from the BBC and the Wall Street Journal
noted that Google wanted its search and
applications on mobile phones and it was
working hard to deliver that. Print and online
media outlets soon reported rumors that
Google was developing a Google-branded
handset . Some speculated that as Google was
defining technical specifications, it was
showing prototypes to cell phone
manufacturers and network operators. In
September 2007, InformationWeek covered
an Evalueserve study reporting that Google
had filed several patent applications in the
area of mobile telephony.[40][