During an interview with BusinessWeek, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said that the carrier will support Google's recently announced open platform: Android. "We're planning on using Android," he said. "Android is an enabler of what we do."
McAdam said he led the charge toward the carrier's recent open access announcement and the lead up involved meetings with the chairman of the FCC and late-night bull sessions with the top executives at parent company Verizon Communications.
So why wasn't Verizon Wireless a charter member of Google's Open Handset Alliance? McAdam said "to get into that press release really didn't do anything. We needed to understand the details of that operating system." Once Verizon Wireless engineers took a look at the details the carrier not only decided that it would support the platform but that it would open its own network too.
"Android really facilitated this move," McAdam said of the carrier's "Any Apps, Any Device" announcement.
For more on Verizon Wireless' decision to support Google's Android:
- read this article from BusinessWeek
- check out our Google Android Emulator slideshow