Market analyst firm J. Gold Associates is predicting that Google's Android and Nokia's Symbian open mobile platforms will announce plans to merge by year-end, Mobile Entertainment reports.

According to the article, the prediction comes from the idea that "the partners involved in each project don't have the stomach for a fight over market share." Regardless of the strength of their internal constitutions, the idea of one open source operating system makes a lot more sense than two in direct completion with each other. Not to mention that a single open platform would be more in the spirit of true openness.

J. Gold sees the idea of a Symbian/Android merger as a good one for several reasons: The Open Handset Alliance, which backs Android, and the Symbian Foundation share a number of sponsors; the combination would be good for the Google, Symbian and the industry; and it would "help spur a growth in the availability of applications and services."