AT&T may give leg up to Google

AT&T (NYSE: T) is giving out strong hints that it may use the new Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android mobile operating systems in handsets it will release later this year. Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is the "official " search engine on AT&T phones now. That could be something of a problem for the beleaguered portal company.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the chief of AT&T's wireless operation "noted that AT&T will be able to customize the Android software's open-source coding to promote the carrier's own data and content services." That might be in place of what the telecom company is doing with Yahoo!.

It is hard to say whether Android is picking up business because the software is so good or because Google has such great clout. Either way, it may be pushing other operating systems from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Symbian out of a piece of the market. Since Android is an open-source system, it allows programmers to add features in a way that other mobile softwares do not.

Google likes to give its competition fits. It looks like it is succeeding again.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.