The Open Handset Alliance spearheaded by Google has released the Android Software Development Kit (SDK). In addition to this, Google has also announced $10 million prizes for the developers of Android mobile platform.
Developers who come up with best ideas for Android mobile platform will be awarded cash prizes ranging from $25,000 to $275,000. $10 million will be equally distributed in two phases of the challenge: Challenge I and Challenge II. Entries from Challenge I will be accepted from January 2 through March, 2008. 50 best entries will be picked by a panel of judges and will receive $25,000 cash reward for future development. These 50 entries will then fight for against each other by applying for Challenge II on May 2, 2008. Ten awards worth $275,000 each and another ten worth $100,000 each will be give to the best 20 applications.
I think the $10 million challenge is an impressive move by Google to kick start application development for the soon-to-be-huge phone. Open source mobile developers will be truly inspired by the challenge to build better and more functional applications for Android. Here’s video which will demonstrate some of Android’s capabilities:
No license fee, no handset purchase and zero development cost. Nothing can be as tempting for a mobile developer than this one. I wonder how long will it take for Apple to release their iPhone SDK.
[Via: Google Blog] Thanks for the tip, Marc.
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