Google Handset Alliance
As with most people in mobile, I read the news on the Open Handset Alliance and Android with a great deal of interest.
I see the Open Handset Alliance as a reaction to Google having had difficulty partnering and working with network operators. Now their strategy is to offer something they think network operators will need and piggy back their adverts and services on top of this instead.
As with all the previous incarnations of organisations and variants of mobile Linux, Google have a large amount of work to do. First they have to catch up with Symbian and Microsoft in terms of OS capability, tools and documentation.
I see the large number of partners as a weakness rather than a strength. Most of the past attempts at creating a common mobile Linux have been held back due to an inability of parties to communicate and co-operate. The only way I can see Google succeeding is as more of dictator and the partners as followers.
Also, notable by their absence are Vodafone, O2, 3 and Orange. I suspect these operators still think that an open phone means an uncontrolled phone that can potentially cause problems for their network and subscribers.
I also feel there’s something missing here. How is Google actually going to make any money? I can see some revenue from mobile web advertising - but Google can do this already via mobile search. How can it make money from say mobile email or mapping applications? Why the big play into mobile? Maybe there’s something we haven’t been told. Maybe it’s something like mobile payment that could make the disparate applications much more useful to Google?
Then again, maybe even Google hasn’t worked all this through yet. It’s well known that Google is more engineering driven rather than marketing or strategy driven. They do something because it can be done and work out how it can be monetised later. Maybe Google just know they need to be in the mobile space as more and more people use the Internet from their mobile phone.
Ignoring the 700MHz spectrum for a moment, the success of the Open Handset Alliance depends on the gatekeepers (network operators) needing yet another mobile OS - hence the absence of some key network operators is revealing. Nevertheless, I’ll be first in the queue for an SDK later this month. If it’s successful with say T-Mobile, maybe the other operators will be won over.
Update 7th November: Android Has No Built-in Business Model
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