By Colin Prior

One thing is for sure: If Apple is credited with starting the smartphone race, Google should be credited with reinventing it. 

While hardware and software manufacturers have slowly been catching up to Apple?s progress, Google has stepped on the gas and is quickly gaining on Apple. 

Google has positioned itself brilliantly in the marketplace and could realistically steer the entire mobile industry.

Google?s strategy has been revealing itself over the last few months and should make us mobile-minded marketers re-evaluate exactly what the smartphone marketplace will look like 12 months from now. 

With Android gaining traction ? 60,000 Android-supported phones shipping per day ? and the acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, as well as the introduction of its Nexus One phone, it is clear that Google not only intends to catch Apple, but pass it as the ?it? company in the smartphone world.

Android 101
Let me start with an overview of Android and what makes it different from other mobile platforms. In short, it is an open-source platform.

What does that mean in plain English? It means that hardware manufacturers are able to customize the operating system to best suit each individual handset versus shoving the software down the throat of the hardware. (Windows Mobile anyone?) 

An open-source platform also allows developers to build on top of one another?s achievements ? collectively advancing smartphone technology ? instead of proprietarily. 

To be fair, these new features could be clunky at first, but over time would become polished and more refined as everyone works to better them.

This type of development community spurs healthy competition among hardware manufacturers looking for a cost-effective way to compete with the iPhone and increase their market share. 

Android brings a lot to the smartphone world and is capable of accelerating the industry faster than other platforms, especially with Google?s ability to push the envelope. But now for the kicker ? it is free. 

Unless a handset manufacturer has its own proprietary software solution ? Apple, Research In Motion, Nokia ? handset manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson must license operating systems, which is a huge expense and drives up cost for consumers. 

But when one of the largest expenses is free, that changes the game. 

Instead of smartphones only being accessible to businesspeople and the upper and middle class, Android-based smartphones will soon be affordable for everyone, similar to feature phones.

The industry is catching on to Google?s game and most recently stole a page from its playbook. 

BREW, which is Qualcomm?s operating system and development platform for feature phones, announced recently that it will be free to hardware manufacturers and carriers.

This announcement came within days of AT&T and Sprint announcing that they would start offering BREW-based handsets. 

In the past, licensing fees for BREW were expensive and stunted the growth of the platform. Now it looks as if BREW is positioning itself as ?the Android of feature phones.?

Developing for Android
There are 20 to 25 Android-based handsets planned to launch this year which will propel its smartphone market share and, thus, the demand for Android mobile applications. 

From a developer?s perspective, however, the variety of handsets running on Android will make application development a nightmare. 

Device variations include keypads, touch screens, internal processing speed and screen size, to name a few. Building applications for such wide-ranging devices will become increasingly difficult with more handsets pouring into the market. 

Unless you have been living in a hole, you know the Apple App Store has more than 140,000 applications right now and has amassed 3 billion-plus downloads.

The low cost and relative development ease of the iPhone platform has definitely helped Apple reach these milestones.

While the Android Marketplace is about one-tenth the size of the Apple App Store at this point, it is growing at an impressive rate. With an influx of handsets and more consumers flocking to Android phones, supply will be forced to meet demand. 

By the end of this year, the Android Marketplace will be a formidable competitor to the Apple App Store. 

Choosing a developer
With all this Android talk, you are probably wondering how you can jump aboard, right?

Mobile applications are a phenomenal marketing tool, if developed and distributed correctly. If the Android market is where your target demographic is, then you should start planning for your Android application today. 

However, find a mobile development company which knows what it is doing. Many developers who were previously on the iPhone bandwagon have recently changed their tune, and expanded into Android and BlackBerry development. 

Be careful, though ? you do not want to be anyone?s experiment. Developing for an iPhone application is very different than one for Android or BlackBerry.

Use a mobile developer which has several applications on different platforms and has been around longer than the Apple App Store. 

This will be a fun year in mobile with even more technological advancements and more businesses realizing mobile?s potential. Just remember, buckle up, because with Google in the driver?s seat, this industry is in the fast lane.

Colin Prior is CEO of Reaxion, Seattle. Reach him at .