Which company originally developed the Android operating system?

Which company originally developed the Android operating system? Android Inc. originally developed Android.

Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. The team initially imagined Android as software for digital cameras, but shifted its attention to smartphones as the mobile market developed. Its goal was to create a flexible alternative to established platforms such as Symbian and Windows Mobile.

Google acquired Android Inc. in July 2005 for a reported sum of at least $50 million. Rubin and other members of the Android team joined Google, where they continued developing the platform using the Linux kernel. Google later helped establish the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium that introduced Android publicly in 2007.

The first commercially available Android phone was the HTC Dream, marketed in the United States as the T-Mobile G1, released in 2008. Google is therefore Android’s later owner and principal developer, but it was Android Inc. that originally created the operating system project.