This is very interesting. Can you provide a source on it?
I think the thesis should be seen more broadly than stated in the article: Android was meant to make smartphones a commodity, giving millions of people access the mobile web.
Microsoft was the threat. Google was expanding into desktop software like Desktop Search, Google Earth, and Picasa by the mid-00's and MS was playing hardball. Google filed a lawsuit against them in 07' over being handicapped in desktop search performance. And Microsoft was already investing billions in web search, so the threat of deeper integration of search into the world's most popular OS was a major long-term threat.
Page and Brin purchased Rubin & Co.'s Android to compete against Blackberry and Palm as well. The earliest Android models borrowed heavily from the BB and Palm interface as well as Windows.
It wasn't until iPhone came out that Google realized Apple created a game-changer and decided to pursue that direction.
Here's what the original Android prototype looked like: http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/11/607064...
Looks very similiar to the other Windows/BB/Palm phones at that time. To Rubin's credit, his former company Danger created a great interface with the HipTopOS (aka T-Mobile's Sidekick) that used the trackwheel pretty well.
Here's another prototype: http://www.osnews.com/img/25264/android-phone-touchscreen.jp... http://www.osnews.com/img/25264/android-phone-history.jpg showing the latter configuration.
The fact that the myth of Android being a Blackberry clone until the iPhone came out is a text book example of something being repeated so many times that people just think it's true. Of course there was a prototype that looked like the Blackberry but it was just one prototype. There were obviously others.