The wraps have only just come off the Google Phone project and the first devices aren't due to be shipped for at least another six months, but there's already breathless speculation about the look, feel and functionality of the new mobile.

John Wang, chief marketing officer at Taiwan-based HTC said in a telephone interview that his company already had "something in the pipeline" which had been under development "for quite some time" and that it was putting in a "humungous" effort on the project.

HTC is one of the four phone manufacturers in Google's 34-member Open Handset Alliance which announced on Monday that it would co-operate to develop the Android operating system,  "an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices".

While wary about giving away too much about the new device, Wang said it would be shipping worldwide in the second half of 2008. He later qualified "worldwide" to mean that while phones would be sold in many different countries, they would not necessarily get them at the same time.

While he would not confirm whether HTC made the prototype that Google has reportedly codenamed "Dream", his boss, HTC chief exeuctive Peter Chou, has already said that the company is mulling whether to manufacture a commerical version of it.

According to a reporter from Forbes magazine, who was given a exclusive demo of the handset, it is one of five prototypes Google is using to showcase the capabilities of a phone that operates on its Linux-based, open-source software platform.

And for all those pundits who are saying that HTC's Google Phone will be based on its recently released Touch Dual 3G smart phone, Wang said it was being built from scratch.

"It is not an existing product or a reconfiguration of an existing product," he said.

In a sometimes cryptic conversation, possibly intended to avoid breaching non-disclosure agreements, Wang also said the new phone would not necessarily use the TouchFLO interface, HTC's patented touch-screen technology.

TouchFLO enables the user to navigate by using either a finger or a stylus and is similar to the technology that Apple incorporated into its new iPhone.

The open nature of the Google software means phones using this platform will not be tied to any proprietary services currently found on devices made by the likes of Nokia, Palm, Research In Motion or which run on the Windows Mobile system.

Such a standard, if it takes hold, would assist Google in migrating its successful online advertising business onto the mobile internet, where the big growth in use is taking place.

Carriers are attracted to the mobiles because they are being designed to use more data services. And hardware manufacturers like HTC see the devices as boosting handset sales, because the new services will not work on existing phones.

The partners also believe such a platform will encourage independent developers to create new applications and uses for Android-based phones, thus enhancing their utility.

Wang also said it was "a common misconception" that just because the Android platform was free that it was only about lowering the cost of smart phones.

"It's not about making a me-too cheap phone," he said. "The companies that will benefit from Android are ones that are interested in innovation."

Although not well-known in this country, HTC is the world's biggest maker of mobile phones running on Microsoft's Windows Mobile system. Microsoft says 11 million Windows Mobile devices were shipped worldwide last financial year and it expects to almost double that in the year to the end of June 2008.

The company launched its first HTC-branded phone in Australia in July and will introduce another five Windows Mobile-based products here by the end of the year.

Wang denied that the new genre of phones would either cannibalise HTC's existing range of smart phones or upset its valued partner, Microsoft. If anything, he said Apple's iPhone was more likely to be a collateral victim of the new entrant.

The "consumer-centric" Android phone would, he said, open up a new segment of the market - somewhere between the smart phones largely used for business purposes and the standard mobile phone.