Opera Software, the creators of Opera browser, has announced the availability of their mobile browser for the Android Platform.

The technical preview release is available at labs.opera.com and the Android development community is invited to test it.

“Today we’re glad to deliver our mass-market mobile browser to the Android development groups,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Opera Mini will be able to empower users of Android-based handsets with access to all of their favorite Web sites with popular features for smooth effects and scalable, tailored viewing.”

The Android platform was officially launched last year, on November 5, as a result of a collaboration between Google and HTC, Intel, Motorola, T-Mobile, nVIDIA and Qualcomm, with one sole purpose: to develop open standards for mobile devices. Google is working on boosting the quality of Web browsing, enhancing the audio and video experience for mobile phones. The Android platform includes its own browser, which does not have Flash support.

There are reports that the South Korean companies Samsung and LG will unveil phones based on Google’s Android mobile phone software platform by the end of this year in the United States, but nothing was officially confirmed.

Opera Mini offers features for real, desktop-like Web browsing from a mobile phone, including Small Screen Rendering, Zoom, synced bookmarks and integrated Google search.

Chris Mills, Opera's Developer Relationship Manager, explained on its blog the reasons behind Opera’s decision to create a version for Android. He also wrote about several issue the team has faced during the development process.

“When we first heard about Google Android, we were very excited about the possibilities it presents, and thought it would be very cool to make Opera Mini available on it, plus it would give mobile developers a better choice of browsers to make available on handsets. But it goes beyond just cool factor - one of Opera's central doctrines is providing the best internet experience on any device - the Android platform is another missing piece of the puzzle for us to fill in,” Mills wrote.