• The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, April 3, 2008 11 AM

AT&T wireless chief Ralph de la Vega on Wednesday said he was "confident" that Google's mobile operating system Android "is something we are going to want in our portfolio." Adding the telecom giant to its partner portfolio would be a huge boost for Android, as AT&T would be the largest mobile carrier to embrace the mobile OS. T-Mobile USA, which plans to offer Android phones in the second half of this year, and SprintNextel are the others.

Android's major draw is customization, which would allow the carriers to promote their own data and services while still offering consumers the chance to download Android-compatible applications and services.

An AT&T-Google partnership might cause problems for the carrier's existing relationship with Yahoo, which is AT&T's official partner for mobile search services, including display advertising. Yahoo executives declined to comment on whether this would create problems for the companies' partnership.

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