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T-Mobile is preparing to launch several new devices in the USA running the Google Android operating system soon. The company’s chief technology officer told GigaOM that the devices will come from three different manufacturers. Right now it sounds like we’re still talking about phones, not netbooks, but T-Mobile CTO Cole Brodman says that the company is “optimistic” about the operating system’s prospects on netbooks.

We’ve already seen that a number of PC makers are experimenting with the operating system, and at least one company has already built a netbook around the software. Google Android was developed for phones, and right now it looks like a cellphone operating system. It only runs one on-screen application at a time, and can’t handle desktop apps like Firefox or OpenOffice.org… yet. But it’s designed to run well on devices with slow, energy efficient ARM-based processors. And if we see more netbook makers adopt the platform for devices with full, touch-typable QWERTY keyboards, maybe we will see some folks develop ports of popular office apps, web browsers, and other utilities.