According to ABI research, fancy smartphones (such as iPhone) account for less than 15% of the headset market. Most consumers, using simpler phones that the industry confusingly calls "feature phones", are not going online while on the move. These are the people that Google is targeting with its software called Android. Android based phones will be cheaper than existing smartphones. But the more fundamental difference hearkens back to the mid-1980s, when the PC era was dawning and two rival operating systems – from Apple and Microsoft – competed to become the dominant platform for which software companies would write programs. Something similar is now happening with phones, all of which will become "smart".
Most mobile operators and handset makers are searching for a platform for their mass market phones of the future. Many have warmed to Linux. Some are tweaking Linux to make their own flavors. Google's Android is a variant of Linux. Google hopes that other operators and handset makers will adopt Android to save themselves the expense of developing their own software. It also hopes that programmers will write fun software for Android, making as uniquitous as Microsoft Windows became in PC era.
Source: "The un-iPhone" The Economist, September 27th 2008: pp. 76