Google’s forthcoming Android operating system has been in the headlines this week, following reports that the company is restricting developer access to the ‘open’ platform and speculation over a potential partnership with rival Symbian. Google is reported to have restricted access to the latest version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) to only 50 winners of a recent development competition held by the company. The last publicly available version of the SDK was released in March. Such a move, reports claim, is at odds with the ‘open-source’ ethos that Google has been promoting for Android.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that rival software platform Symbian said yesterday it could expand its collaboration with Google to the operating system level as it moves to grant free and open access to its system. “We already work together and so whatever collaboration, if there is an opportunity, we will be happy to collaborate with them,” Symbian chief executive Nigel Clifford told the news agency. “And that could be on the application level or that could be on the more fundamental operating system level.” Symbian currently uses Google applications such as maps and search engines on its platforms. Last month it was reported that launch of the first devices based on Google’s Android open-source mobile operating system has been pushed back to the fourth-quarter of this year, with some likely to be delayed until 2009.