In 1998, Google first became incorporated as a private company, launching its search engine on the World Wide Web. Twelve years later, Google is the world's most popular search engine and website, and considered by some even to be the most powerful brand in the world. As a central hub from which one can access virtually any piece of information ever put on the internet, Google has become the flag ship in a vast fleet of information compiled by the entire world over for the past two decades.

Their rapid success and commercial growth has allowed them to extend far beyond the core search engine. Google now has its own email client, web browser, and most notable as of recently: it's own operating system for use with mobile phones and apparatuses, dubbed "Android".

T-Mobile cell phones were the first to incorporate Android with the release of the T-Mobile G1, also marketed as the HTC Dream as the hardware components were developed by HTC. Though recently discontinued on July 27, 2010, the T-Mobile G1 was succeeded by the T-Mobile G2 Touch (Also developed by HTC and dubbed the HTC Hero), which was HTC's third phone to work with the Android system.

Other T-Mobile cell phones using the Android operating system include the HTC Desire, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G (Or HTC Magic), the Nexus One, LG's GW620 Eve, the Motorola Cliq, and the Samsung Behold II. T-Mobile's Pulse Mini and the HTC Vision, slated for release during the third quarter of 2010, will also run on the most current version of Android software. Garmin, the company most widely recognized for its significant presence in the GPS navigation market, has also released a phone aptly dubbed the Garminfone that uses the Android operating system.

The quick decision by T-Mobile to partner with Google in using their operating system on their next generation of phones can only be considered a wise one, given the popularity and user-friendliness of Android. As of now, the net sales of smartphones operating on Android surpass those of both BlackBerry OS, and Apple's iOS, contributing to one third of all smartphone operating systems sold in the second quarter of 2010.

This significant margin over competed operating systems can be partially attributed to Android's massive third party support in the development of applications. Because software development kits are available to even amateur programmers, there are some 70,000 apps currently available, with many thousands more estimated to have been submitted. Its use of the widely popular Java has made user developed apps even easier to program. Android's success as an operating system can also be attributed to its basis on the Linux kernel, Linux being considered to be the most reliable, stable, and capable operating systems - itself the product of user collaboration.