Google announced its cellular phone strategy today putting some of the rumored cell phone strategy to rest.

The Mountain View, Calif., Internet company said the new cellphone technology it is creating with its partners – which it calls Android – would enable faster development of innovative cellphone features. The platform includes several layers of software for phones, including an operating system, a user interface and applications.

Among the handset makers that signed on to Google’s initiative were Taiwan’s HTC Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Inc. Operator partners include Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel Corp., and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc.

The theory is that this will release the choke hold that cellular giants have on wireless subscribers in terms of the services and features available on wireless phones with an operating system and other service for cell phones that provides anyone who wishes to develop the ability to do so.

To date Google has an advertising system designed to work on Mobile phones, a mobile development company named Andriod that it quietly purchased in 2005, and an interesting movement known as open social, announced last week.

Google is said to be releasing development tools for the operating system next week. These Google powered handsets should began populating the cellular market in Mid 2008.

The complete WSJ article