Google just brought the stakes up a little higher, with a promise to offer USD 10 million to developers who build mobile applications for their new Android platform. This will be part of a major contest that should encourage the release of fresh and innovative mobile apps.

The open source feature is one that Google prides most with on the newly released platform. Because of this, it now tries to give enough motivation for developers to build new applications for it and seems to be doing a pretty good job, with the impressive offers. Google will be handing out cash prizes ranging from USD 25,000 to USD 275,000 to developers whose applications are designated as winners by a panel of judges.

"We've built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that's because they're going to be written by developers", said Sergey Brin, Co-founder and President, Technology, Google. Things go even further, as he also stated that "We'd like to reward these developers and recognize them as much as possible".

"We believe that the Android platform offers developers a unique opportunity to create truly innovative mobile software", said Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms. Because of this, "We're challenging developers to stretch their imaginations and skills to leverage the full capabilities of this new platform and to create something amazing", he further added.

The Android platform was announced on November 5 by the Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile industry leaders. This community will bring all the needed details for getting started on developing new applications for the software. This includes documentation, sample projects, development tools, emulator, and libraries that developers will need to build Android applications.

There will actually be two distinct competitions. Submissions for Challenge I will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008 and the 50 most promising entries will be recognized by the end of March with each receiving USD 25,000 awards to fund further development. These 50 entries will compete on May 1st, 2008 for ten awards worth USD 275,000 each and another ten worth USD 100,000 each. The winning application from all these entries will be announced by the end of May 2008. Challenge II will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008.