Acer has been expected for quite some time now to opt for the Google Android platform for some of its future smartphones, and all has become official at the beginning of June, as the company announced it had joined the Open Handset Alliance, while also stating that it should be able to deliver its first smarphone running under the platform in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year.

According to the press release Acer issued to announce its joining the Open Handset Alliance, the company plans to work along with the members of the Alliance for further development of the platform, so as to be able to deliver a better mobile experience than the one mobile platforms can offer today. “By joining the Open Handset Alliance, Acer demonstrates its support for Android as an open mobile platform and its commitment to Android’s commercial success.” the company stated.

As many of you might already know, the Android platform is an open-source operating system that can also offer middleware and key mobile applications. At the same time, the platform can provide manufacturers and operators with all that they would need for building a mobile phone, and it has been developed so as to offer developers the possibility to create applications that can fully benefit from what the mobile phone can offer them.

There are a wide range of handsets expected to come to the market featuring the aforementioned operating system during the ongoing year, and Google announced last week in a conference in San Francisco that it expected a number of 20 mobile phones running under Android to be launched on the market in 2009, and it seems that Acer will be one of the makers to deliver its own such device. The Open Handset Alliance has a number of 40 members today, yet more companies are expected to join forces in the near future.