Telecom Italia has joined a Google-led alliance aimed at making it easier to develop software for mobile phones.
The group of companies will co-develop the first "open and comprehensive software platform for mobile devices," sources said.
The new package is called Android after a Silicon Valley start-up that Google acquired two years ago to steer its top-secret project.
The alliance, called Open Handset Alliance, currently numbers 33 technology and mobile industry companies.
Open Handset Alliance is "aimed at making more flexible and easy the development of software for mobile phones," sources said.
The system, which will control an untold number of cell phones, is designed to unify the developers of mobile applications around "a common platform that makes it easier and more enticing to surf the Web on cell phones".
Google says the project will cut the production costs and prices of mobile phones.
