It looks like Google wants to improve the brand cache of their mobile OS. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the folks on this and all of our other tech sites know that they are using a device with an Android operating system. Apparently though, there are still a great number of average consumers out there who have no idea what type of OS is on their smartphone or tablet device.
Google wants to tweak that perspective a bit, and have been pushing Android OEMs to include the "Powered by Android" branding on all new devices. The first clue of this is seen in the new Samsung and HTC phones, where the slogan shows up on the boot screen. According to the report, this will show up on all new devices going forward, including tablets and smartphones which use Android. At this point there is no proof or official statement given on whether this is a requirement, or is just the result of some marketing pressure.
There's also no indication that manufacturer's who use heavily forked versions of Android, like Amazon, will be following suit. They might not take too kindly to this pressure. This could just spur them to make their own OS. Of course, that's not necessarily an easy thing to do without stepping on a few patents from multiple companies.
Source: SlashGear