McGuire’s Law

Monday morning, the Open Handset Alliance announced the Android mobile platform. Some were disappointed to not see a Google Phone. Some obviously felt threatened. After nearly a week of letting emotions settle, what’s the general opinion on the platform? Here’s a round-up of observations:

Investor’s Business Daily’s coverage included these quotes:

Google’s GOOG entry into wireless last week failed to spark the intense hype of the iPhone, but its impact could be even bigger, analysts say. Rather than unveil a Google phone as many expected, Google unwrapped a wide-reaching software initiative that aims to make cell phones much more powerful and easy to use — and perhaps loosen carriers’ grip on consumers.

“It’s a deliberate effort by Google to rewrite the rules for mobile voice and wireless applications,” said Bill Whyman, technology analyst at ISI Group. “It’s more significant and ambitious than a single Google phone and seeks to create an entirely new mobile experience.”

…

The goal for all is to draw in the largest number of software programmers as possible to create applications and features to their respective phones, making them more valuable to users.

The lack of must-have software applications for cell phones is one factor holding back stronger sales of smart phones, analysts believe.

“We’re just crossing about 10% of the cellular market for smart phones,” said ISI’s Whyman. “None of these efforts have attained any dominance, and customers really haven’t spoken yet. This is where the applications will come into play.”

Information Week featured a number of interesting views of Android.

Given their audience, it’s understandable that the publication focused on the implications of Android on businesses.

Richard Martin observed that IT pros are anxiously awaiting Android:

For mobile applications developers, second-tier U.S. wireless carriers, some handset makers, and most consumers, the announcement of a Google mobile platform and a new coalition to promote open standards for mobile devices and applications is a welcome relief from current lock-in products and services.

For enterprise IT managers, the response is a bit more qualified.

With the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) platform, called Android “becoming the major open-standard open-source platform for mobile devices, that’s ultimately a good thing for enterprises, even though it’s still very early,” said Mike McClaskey, CIO of Perot Systems. “If it can deliver higher functionality, reduced costs, and address all the issues around privacy and security as well as integration with back-office systems, that’s great — but we’ve got to wait and see if that comes to fruition.”

…

“If you’re a CIO projecting a five-year road map, and you want to understand where your mobile strategy needs to be within that overall road map, this changes things significantly for you,” said Carmi Levy, senior VP of strategic consulting at Toronto-based consultancy AR Communications. “You will have to make allowance for this new entrant, which is not only going to do something that hasn’t existed before, but will influence the incumbent players to reinvent themselves in the process.”

In a word, Android and the Open Handset Alliance will bring a new openness to enterprise mobility. If the ecosystem of third-party developers that Google envisions grows up around Android, they will develop not only consumer-oriented programs such as games, but enterprise-targeted apps as well. What’s more, because Android is open source, companies will be free to adapt it to their own needs, and develop customized in-house applications of their own.

That’s a great thing. To be sure, though, the shift to devices with open-source operating systems and fully powered Web browsers raises many questions for enterprise IT departments.

“Corporate IT departments will need to be concerned with mobile security features and monthly costs,” said Michelle Warren, senior analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, in an e-mail. “Especially if Google generates revenue from advertisements — the big questions are how can IT departments block advertisements (increased advertisement data usage might boost monthly costs) and limit the network exposure?”

Stephen Wellman interviewed Forrester’s Maribel Lopez and asked “What Does Google’s Android Mean for IT?”

Maribel Lopez (ML): Linux was already underway but Android proves the technology has real vendors signed up to provide momentum. While this improves Linux’s market potential, it does not spell doom for other operating systems.

…

Android will compete with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Symbian, and RIM for the device software stack. But at the end of the day, Google is most interested in propagating a software environment that will allow Google and others to build apps for mobile devices.

Later in the week, Richard Martin returned with the question “Android: Nightmare or Dream for Enterprise IT?”

An Android-based phone can be every bit as secure as smartphones based on operating systems from RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and Symbian. But they might not, and without an SDK (software development kit) or actual platform code to look at, there’s no way of knowing. IT managers are paid to be suspicious of new platforms ? many are still getting used to the idea of employees using Google’s Web-based applications for the desktop, much less mobile tools — and they will be of this one, too. But the future clearly lies with open standards and open source in the mobile world, and IT departments will have to learn to deal. I thought this comment, from “IT Guy” on the WSJ blog, summed it up nicely:

“If security is so much an issue then why would companies allow the use of Microsoft products such as Windows Mobile? Microsoft has a notorious record of security holes in their OS?s.”

IT learned to live in a Windows world, with tons of third-party applications and plenty of security patches. It has learned to live in the Linux world on the desktop. It will adapt to the Linux-based Android world on mobile devices, too.

Eric Zeman made his opinion clear in his piece titled “Google’s Android Platform Is Not For The Enterprise.”

But he was really just referencing the content of the announcement press conference: “The participants of today’s conference call could not have been any clearer. Each of the speakers said ‘improve the consumer experience’ multiple times in their little speeches.”

Information Week also took a look at the impact Android will have on the mobile and internet industries.

Wellman asked “Will Google’s Android Further Fragment the Mobile Market?”

Three questions popped into my head during today’s press conference. Isn’t the mobile OS market already pretty fragmented? Does the mobile handset market need yet another flavor of mobile linux? And if the platform is this open, what’s to stop carriers likeVerizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless or AT&T (NYSE: T) from using Android to create closed, white-label phones that are just as locked down as today’s handsets?

Nothing in today’s press conference really answered any of these questions.

As for question one, the mobile handset market is already pretty balkanized. Even within one operating system, like Windows Mobile or Symbian, there are key differences between the ways any given OS works between two different handset makers (such as Windows Mobile on HTC smartphones vs. Windows Mobile onMotorola (NYSE: MOT) devices). And this is with one proprietary OS, Windows Mobile.

If you look laterally, these issues also apply to other mobile OS ecosystems, like Symbian (which is an open mobile OS, btw). In the Symbian world, you have competing interfaces, like Nokia’s S60 vs. UIQ.

Once you take a step back, you see even more balkanization, with the various flavors of Windows Mobile, S60 Symbian, UIQ Symbian, Palm, 22 (or more) versions of mobile linux, J2ME (Sun’s version of mobile Java), etc. On top of this, each of the handset makers has their own proprietary OS (or multiple proprietary OSes) that compete with all of the above.

Google has now decided to climb into this ring and add even more options. Google could be the tipping point for open source in the wireless industry, leveraging its clout and turning Android into the default standard for linux in the wireless industry.

Then again, Android could also add to the current problem of mobile device and OS balkanization. I’d like to think that Google can clean this mess up, but given how hard Microsoft, Symbian, Sun, and others have worked to bring unity to this market — and the fact that this problem has only gotten worse with time, not better — makes me think that Google clearly has its work cut out for it.

Now, let’s drill down to the issue of mobile linux. As I pointed out last month there are roughly 22 varieties of mobile linux in the market (23 or more if you count Android). If Google’s ToS are really as open as they claimed during the conference today, we could soon see 1,022 varieties of mobile linux in the next two years. Maybe that’s what Google wants, but if Google hopes Android will be a one-stop shop for developers, more balkanization will only add to the pain of growth, not ease it. Unless Google has some kind of app standardization technology behind the scenes of which I am not aware.

As for question number three, I don’t see what will stop a carrier like Verizon Wireless from using this software to develop its own locked-down version of an Android phone. I mean if the ToS is really that flexible, why not?

Verizon or AT&T could conceivably launch their own gPhones, tap into a fast-growing global developer community, and cherry pick the apps they want to allow on their devices, and then ship them with all the restrictions they currently use on their other handsets. How would Google prevent this? Would Google have to be less than open to keep the carriers from locking down their new Google-powered phones?

Later Stephen asked Funambol’s Fabrizio Capobianco “What Does Google’s Android Mean For The Open Source Community?”

Yes, this definitely adds to the momentum that we’ve seen building since 2001. Google today helped bring open source in mobile even further to the foreground. In order to reach the mobile consumer market, open source software and open standards are vital because of the billions of devices on the market. These devices represent the future computing platform and Google recognizes this and will compete using open source.

…

Passionate developers will build tomorrow’s cutting edge applications for mobile consumers and will build on Linux. Consumers are increasingly demanding access to their email, social networks and other online applications through their mobile devices. It takes a global network of developers to deliver on these demands.

W. David Gardner observed that “Google’s Android is Creating Some ‘Strange Bedfellows’”

The Android mobile platform unveiled by Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Monday is demonstrating that politics is not the only phenomenon that creates strange bedfellows. Washington lobbying associations CTIA and Public Knowledge, normally on opposite sides on wireless issues, are each hailing Google’s mobile phone brainchild — for very different reasons.

Formerly known as the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, CTIA — which refers to itself as “The Wireless Association” — has hailed the Open Handset Alliance’s Android effort because it proves that “net neutrality” rules aren’t needed; Public Knowledge likes Android for its openness.

The CTIA’s president and CEO Steve Largent said he likes the idea that consumers will have another operating system to choose from.

“If ever there was evidence that so-called ‘net neutrality’ rules were not needed, today’s news is it,” Largent said in a statement immediately after the public unveiling of Android. “Because the government has never dictated a single technology or business model, companies big and small are constantly entering the wireless marketplace to put forward innovative mobile products and services that consumers want and need.”

Finally, Information Week took a look at the implications for specific companies.

Zeman interviewed Qualcomm’s Vicki Mealor

With Android, we’re just saying we can run Linux on our chipsets as well.

…

We’re about developing robust data services. This is just another platform by which we can deliver content or helpful data services. BREW supports Flash, forVerizon (NYSE: VZ), and our C-based applications support Java. Android should be no different. We look forward to being able to distribute content and services to Android-powered devices.

Frost & Sullivan’s Gerry Purdy closed IW’s early coverage of Android with these observations:

I don’t think the entire story is out there yet. I’m cautiously optimistic but there’s still a lot that must happen for this to be successful. Does it negatively affect Apple? Apple isn’t going to give up their iPhone OS to run Android, but it might accelerate Apple to open up their platform so that more software, services and even handset partners come to market. Thus, there’s no reason Apple couldn’t team withYahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) to create a similar open ecosystem.

One thing you can count on: the OHA is real and will definitely affect the mobile and wireless industry for many years to come. It’s a bit like being told that your entire family has decided to pitch in and buy you a wonderful Christmas present for next year. It’s a long wait, but you have positive anticipation.

Kudos to Google and the initial members of the OHA. Bring us great devices, user experiences and attractively priced services and users will come. This raises the bar for the industry again just as Apple did with the iPhone earlier this year.

ZDnet.co.uk’s Peter Judge shared “What you should care about Google Android“

What’s in it for the operators?
In exchange for giving up their walled gardens, the operators get the promise of a cheaper handset platform, and one which will develop faster and have more applications ? if the Android ecosystem works as planned.

What’s been the problem with mobile Linux?
It’s been difficult to persuade the diverse Linux community to create the kind of single monolithic software that a phone needs, then to persuade operators to use it and developers to build to it, and finally users to buy it.

With 34 members, including significant operators (Telefonica O2 and T-Mobile, and KDDI and DoCoMo in Asia) Android is already doing far better than any previous Linux phone effort.

Finally, eWeek’s Evan Schuman asks “Could Google’s Android Be the Cell Phone’s Savior?“

The U.S. mobile market today gives companies two less-than-ideal alternatives when trying to create mobile functionality. It can either go the app approach or the browser approach.

The app approach forces the consumer to download?or to have pre-installed?a small applet onto the phone. The chief pro: The final result should look exactly as the designers intended. The chief con: It limits the audience size to those whose OS and platform are compatible with the applet.

The browser approach is almost the opposite. Its potential audience size is all-but-infinite, but it requires a company to create another version of its Web site that would work well in the very screen-, RAM-, hard-disk- and connection-limited mobile world. The practical reality is to program to the lowest common denominator for all mobile OS and platform options.

Neither is an especially attractive option, but it’s all that exists for today’s company that wants to do mobile programming. This is where Android starts to look good. The group is creating a software development kit?to be released the week of Nov. 12?that would support open-source programming that would sit atop the platform. Truth be told, few companies today want to be in the mobile OS business. That’s not where the money is. Will the Palm OS even exist in two years? Seen a lot of cutting-edge work being done on Microsoft CE? RIM’s BlackBerry has some staying power, but the OS is also not its passion. Apple’s iPhone OS? I’ve given up trying to predict Apple.

To be fair, Google doesn’t exactly want to be in the mobile OS business either, but it has its eyes on a huge mobile advertising market. That’s a market that nobody can touch until the U.S. mobile market gets cleaned up.

Am I suggesting that Android will work and will somehow deliver great things by the end of next year, as promised? Not necessarily. But I still hold out a lot of hope, given how much this industry needs it. I’m not so sure that necessity is the mother of invention?I’ve always felt that unrestrained avarice always did that job so much better.

Bottom line - a lot of hope, and still a lot of unknowns.? Time will tell.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Book, Enablers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.