There have been lots of rumors about the highly anticipated Android-powered, HTC Dream phone. Now it’s official. T-Mobile confirmed today that it plans to launch an Android mobile phone made by HTC. They are hoping to make it a direct threat to Apple’s popular iPhone.

A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company gave no details on the launch date, but according to the New York Times, the phone will hit stores in the United States before Christmas. Maybe even as early as October. Apparently the device will have a touch screen and will slide out to reveal a full five-row keyboard.

This morning Google had a phone open phone conference and made the much anticipated announcement that they along with 33 other companies are starting the Open Handset Alliance. The first and main project of the newly formed alliance is called Android, an open development platform for mobile handsets. The ultimate goal for Google with this is to overall make a better, more usable phone with more features where consumers will benefit, and of course to show advertisements on it where Google will also benefit.

Eric Schmidt was present on the call leading things off, with a number of other captains of industry including Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm, Peter Chou from HTC and Ed Zander from Motorola. The members of the Open Handset Alliance include some big names like Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, eBay, Intel, NVIDIA and many others. Some notable big names we’re not seeing on the member list are Microsoft, Apple, AT&T and Verizon.