Speech technology vendor Loquendo (News - Alert) has announced that it’s Embedded Technologies -- ASR and TTS -- are now available for OEMs and developers of multimedia applications on the Android (News - Alert), Maemo and Moblin software platforms.

Android is available 'under a developer-friendly open-source license,' Loquendo officials say, designed to give mobile operators and device manufacturers 'the freedom and flexibility to design products.'

Recent arrivals to the market include Motorola’s (News - Alert) Droid, HTC’s Nexus One, and the soon to be released Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. 

It's the field you want to be in: According to IDC, shipments of handsets with the Android OS will reach 68 million units by 2013, second only to Symbian (News - Alert). Gartner also forecasts that Android, by 2012, will rank second behind the Symbian OS.

Loquendo recently sent out an end-of-2009 letter noting that the company had 'reinforced its market position, developing strategic alliances with key players in all market segments.'

Loquendo expanded its portfolio of customers in every sector as well, some 15 carriers worldwide, covering all of Europe and Latin America, including IVR vendors, automotive customers both for in-car devices and PNDs, banks, health care, government agencies, and more.

Loquendo TTS and ASR integrate with the Android platform, offering Java-level interfaces to developers. Moreover, Loquendo officials say, TTS 'has been integrated into the Text-To-Speech Extended framework.' This interface, once installed, makes Loquendo synthetic speech available to any Android app, allowing Android phone users to immediately upgrade to high quality TTS.

On Android, the TTS interface is very simple at the API level, and all functionalities are controlled through Speech Synthesis Markup Language tags. By offering a fully-fledged SSML implementation, Loquendo gives application developers full control over its TTS features.

Early this month, Intel and Nokia (News - Alert) announced the merging of Moblin and Maemo into the MeeGo mobile software platform, for which Loquendo will also offer full support.