Google phone plans to be announced Monday

The long-awaited announcement of Google's phone plans will occur earlier than expected, and not in the form previously laid out, says the Wall Street Journal. While it had been suggested that an announcement would come November 13th at the earliest, the Journal's sources say that it will mostly likely happen Monday, November 5th, and with different carriers. T-Mobile is still involved, but the other main party is said to be Sprint. Foreign carriers may be included, but have not been mentioned.

Google is again said to be working with cellular networks and phone makers to promote an "open" application platform, courting companies such as HTC, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. With T-Mobile Google is claimed to be going even further, cooperating directly on building phones using its software. When the efforts of any of these collaborations might bear fruit remains unknown, but Journal proposes that the earliest date for sale of a Google-ready phone would be mid-2008.

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