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Several sources report the struggling cell phone maker Motorola is getting ready to get into the Google Android business in a big way. Perhaps Motorola sees Android as an ace in the hole to improve its sagging fortunes.

The reports say Motorola is looking to expand its 50-person staff to develop Android-run phones by 350 people. That's a seven-fold increase in manpower and a major indication that Motorola's going to make a major push towards creating and supporting mobile handsets that run on the Linux-based open source platform.

As a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA)—the consortium of of major mobile telephony, semiconductor, and mobile handset players behind Android—and no stranger to Linux (it's developed many phones based on it over the years), Motorola's growing interest in Android should come as no surprise. And, unlike Windows Mobile, which Motorola uses in its Q-line of smartphones, Android is essentially a free - and yet well supported - mobile platform from which handset vendors can built cell phones. Not a bad solution for a manufacturer like Motorola that’s seen its sales drop so dramatically in recent quarters.

Google, along with T-Mobile, introduced the first Android-run phone, the G1, made by HTC, at an event in New York City last week. It is expected to ship on October 22nd.

The G1 is just the tip of the iceberg of what could conceivably become a thriving Android hardware and, even more importantly, software market.

The OHA asserts Android will make it easier and less costly to develop applications for mobile phones—by removing the often complicated pre-qualification regimens and hoops mobile operators make developers jump through today—while giving these wireless carriers and phone manufacturers a great deal more flexibility in the devices the former supports and the latter creates.

In theory, all of this (more freedom, less cost, greater flexibility) should be experienced by consumers as a result of Android as well. By making more advanced cell phones, smartphones and (even) applications cheaper to buy and easier to use, and giving consumers a greater say in the mobile handset they choose to buy and use on their carrier's wireless network.