The launch of the first devices based on Google’s ‘Android’ open-source mobile operating system has been pushed back to the fourth-quarter of the year, with some likely to be delayed until 2009, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The paper says that T-Mobile USA will launch an Android-powered device in fourth-quarter 2008, but that both China Mobile and Sprint Nextel have delayed launches until the beginning of next year. The delay at China Mobile is reportedly linked to problems developing a Chinese language version of the platform. Google originally earmarked the second half of this year for the first launches but has previously denied rumours of delays.

The report claims that Android has also failed to win broad support from large mobile software developers, with some reportedly finding it difficult to develop programmes while Google is still tweaking its own code. “This is where the pain happens … [but] we are very, very close,” Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, told the WSJ.