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Microsoft plans to continue charging licensing fees from handset makers for using its mobile operating system and not follow the free offerings of Google and Nokia, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday. The pressure on Microsoft’s high licensing fees has increased over 2008 with Google rolling out free Android technology and Nokia offering to buy out others from Symbian and also make its software royalty-free. “We do,” Ballmer told Reuters, when asked whether his firm would stick with licensing fees. “We are doing well, we believe in the value of what we are doing.”

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Ballmer: Microsoft Is Up-Front About Its Money Motive

Nearly a week after T-Mobile, HTC and Google unveiled the G1, the first handset running the open source Android mobile platform, another handset maker is reportedly preparing a large push to incorporate the nascent mobile software system into its upcoming devices. A report Sunday stated that Motorola is boosting the size of its Android development team from 50 to 350. The information was attributed to an unnamed developer who was approached by a headhunter for one of the positions.

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Could Android Grease Motorola’s Wheels?

Nokia is well prepared for Google’s high-profile foray into the mobile phone business thanks to years of development experience and millions of phones on the market, a senior Nokia official told Reuters. Details of Google’s plan to enter the mobile software market are expected on Tuesday when T-Mobile USA displays the first phone based on Google’s Android platform in New York, sources familiar with the plan have said. Nokia said in June it would buy out smartphone software maker Symbian, then give the software to not-for-profit organization and make it royalty-free.

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The Android Threat: Banking on Symbian’s Maturity

After years of development, Google’s first Android-powered phone is finally here — well, almost. T-Mobile is expected to unveil the HTC Dream at a closed media event Sept. 23, with the device rumored to hit store shelves by mid-October. The question, then, is whether the Dream — and the Android concept on the whole — can actually deliver. It’s a daunting task to try to topple the king, particularly one as popular and heavily hyped as Apple’s iPhone.

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Who Wants to Buy an Android?

Anyone expecting the soon-to-be-launched Google phone to change the market like Apple’s iPhone has over the past year will likely be disappointed — for now. Industry insiders who have worked on Google’s Android mobile operating system say it will struggle in the near term to match the consumer enthusiasm generated by Apple when its iPhone redefined the touch-screen phone market and greatly improved mobile Web surfing. Instead, Google sees Android as an open source platform for designing mobile devices.

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Anticipating Android: Will It Challenge iPhone?