Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG) Android has come under criticism of being in danger of fragmentation, and despite protests it seems it is already at play. The Java part of Android is a different version to the one that the rest of the mobile industry has been developing since the 1990’s, reports CNet. Google claims its version of Java runs better and faster on mobiles, but it still creates another standard. “They are using Java, but they aren’t implementing any well-known Java framework, and really that just creates another standard to support. The risk they take here is that they might fragment the market further,” said Benoit Schillings, Trolltech chief technology officer.

On its side, Google is attempting to address the problem of fragmentation by getting all its partners to sign a non-fragmentation agreement—although it sounds more like a general agreement than an enforceable contract. “The most important thing is that everyone has agreed to the spirit of it because they realise that one of the big important things of this alliance is to build a vibrant third-party developer community. And they all agree that if they were to do things that would compromise the integrity of the platform, that would break third-party applications, and nobody wants to do that” said Android co-founder Rich Miner in this ComputerWorld interview.