‘They are 14 of 47.’

As announced yesterday, fourteen new companies joined the Open Handset Alliance, a technology and mobile group supporting Android as an open mobile platform. Complete press release, with the names of just who signed on, can be found here.

These forty-seven companies will be working together to provide us, the consumers, with stable and high quality mobile devices, advancing technology every step of the way.

What does this mean for us as consumers? For starters, less expensive handsets since the companies who produce the hardware will already be connected to the ones who make the software and applications.

Speaking of applications, since Android is open source, really any developer can produce useful or just plain fun add-ons. Developers can find out more at the Android SDK site.

Consumers benefit from the innovation by having a more entrhalling mobile experience, and developers can grab a slice of something that shows promise of being huge.