T-Mobile's Google Android-powered phone hasn't even been released yet and already developers are creating applications for it.

Funambol Inc. has launched an open source mobile sync app for the Android G1 phone from T-Mobile USA. The Funambol Android Client syncs contacts from a Google gPhone with a Funambol Server. It provides an open source Mobile'We' capability for gPhones to make it easy for users to share contacts from other mobile phones.

"The Google Phone is a great example of how the mobile industry is embracing open source, but at the same time, it's also more open for Google than other software and services," said Fabrizio Capobianco CEO of Funambol, Redwood City, CA.

Via the application, users can also sync and share contacts from popular Web email services such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL.

Funambol Android Client will be available after G1 phones ship and the Android Market is open for third party applications.

An early version can be downloaded now from the Funambol Forge at
https://www.forge.funambol.org/participate/projects.html.

Future releases will add support for syncing mobile content such as calendars and push email.

Compared to Apple MobileMe, Funambol supports 1.5 billion phones, is open source, and is not constrained to .mac or .me email addresses.

Funambol is the leading provider of open source push email and mobile sync for the mass market.

Funambol open source software has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times by 50,000 developers and project participants in 200 countries.

The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including customers such as AOL, 1&1, Earthlink and CA, Inc.

The T-Mobile G1 is the first phone to provide access to Android Market, where customers can find and download unique applications, like Funamobil's, to expand and personalize their mobile phone.
Google's Android platform -- and Android Market in particular -- could have a deep impact on the mobile marketing ecosystem (see story).

The goal of Android is to empower developers with tools to create and offer consumers applications that add value to their handsets.

The new phone has started a ripple effect in the blogosphere.

"The G1 event has come and gone and it looks like we're seeing an epic paradigm shift in the mobile space," said John Biggs in his blog, Crunch Gear. "iPhone started the ball rolling and Android is about the finish the job.

"Phones are now officially computers and the expectation for most users is that they behave in the same way a powerful laptop or desktop PC would perform, albeit in a considerably more compact package,"he said.