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Google Mobilizes with Android
Tara Seals
12/31/2007 Google’s mobile plans are beginning to clarify. The first devices based on the Google-sponsored, open-source platform for mobile applications and handset development known as Android will start appearing in the market later this year, and the search giant is preparing for the 700MHz auction, which starts this month. Rumors have abounded that Google will invest in WiMAX. But while the launch of Linux-based Android was met with much fanfare back in November, questions remain as to whether Android is truly more than just another mobile operating system. For example, folks are wondering if Android is just a Trojan horse to drive mobile search. There’s also rampant speculation over whether Android will live up to its promise. That is, that Android will create the same sort of applications explosion for mobile as we’ve seen on the Web. “Ten years ago, I was sitting in a graduate student cubicle, and we were able to build incredible things,” says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “There was a set of tools that allowed us to do that, all the open-source technologies available at the time — Linux, GNU, Apache, PipeBomb. All those pieces and many more allowed us to do great things and distribute it to the world. That is what we are doing today, to allow people to innovate on today’s mobile devices … which are more powerful than the heavy iron I was using in those offices 10 years ago.” Google hopes Android will be a tool to enable similar things today in the mobile world. The toolkit and framework known as Android is for designing IP-based, rich-media applications that handset manufacturers can embed in their devices, which in turn are distributed by carriers looking to give their subscribers a more enriched Internet experience. The platform contains all the components (operating system, middleware, user interface and applications) to build a handset, and will be available to anyone that wants to add to it, tweak it or write to it — for free. “Basically it means you no longer have to shoehorn applications in,” says Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. “Anything that can work in a Web environment will work well here, and also on PC or Mac — games, multiplayer, video and audio, social networking — apps obviously useful to the mobile user.” Thirty-four developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers have come together to get Android-based products to market, calling themselves the Open Handset Alliance (see below for more info). HTC Corp. will have an Android phone rolling off the assembly line in the second half of the year, and Motorola Inc. probably will too. Handset maker Samsung is part of the alliance as well. T-Mobile USA Inc. will make open Internet applications and social networking available to subscribers based on the platform soon. And wireless giant Qualcomm Inc. will contribute its 7000 Series chipset to the project. Despite the high-profile launch, Android has its detractors, including analysts Mike Grant and Andrew Parkin-White at Analysys. “As a strategy to bring fundamental change to the mobile phone industry, Android is way off target,” they say in a research brief. That’s because Android, they argue, is nothing but another mobile OS, and there already are Linux-based OS choices in the market that have failed to create a vibrant developer community. Google, for its part, says Android is not meant to be competitive (see sidebar below), but even so, “one fundamental issue prevents the mobile Internet [from] evolving in the same manner as the fixed Internet: the fragmentation of the mobile handset market,” write Grant and Parkin-White. “This is an issue that even Android cannot address.” Other issues with Android include the lack of a sufficient incentive for major players to write off the investments already made in software platforms. Also, Grant and Parkin-White point out that OEMs have a financial liability for the devices that they produce, so will invest millions of dollars in “creating their own version of Android in order to ensure that it is stable and secure enough to install on millions of devices. This is precisely the process they have been through with all mobile operating systems before Android.” What Android does do is provide impetus for Google’s own plans. Its known mobile pieces — the platform for development, the industry partnerships, the Googlized handsets to come, the spectrum (if won) in the 700MHz band — all conspire to create a picture of a company looking to become a wireless service provider. Also, Android, by increasing the availability of developed applications and content on the handset, will drive a need for Google’s core search services as more content is deployed. Overall, Grant and Parkin-White are dubious about Google’s long-term viability in mobile. “Google would not be the first major corporation to underestimate the scope and complexity of the mobile market. After all, Microsoft is on its sixth iteration of Windows Mobile, and it has arguably still failed to crack the market.” What Andriod Is Not Android was a big announcement for Google, but not the one many people were expecting. Android is not, for example, the gPhone, the long-rumored Google-branded handset. Andy Rubin, director of mobile platforms for Google, says that if there were to be a gPhone, and he’s not saying there will be, Android would be the platform on which to build it. He says essentially, any phone built on Android would be considered a gPhone. Android also is not a competitor to iPhone/Mac OS 10-for-mobile, which Apple’s Steve Jobs said would get its own SDK for developers next month. Nor does it compete with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile, RIM’s BlackBerry and Nokia, which runs Symbian as its OS, according to Google. “There is the ability for anyone to join the Open Handset Alliance. This is not a closed alliance,” says Rubin. “As an open platform, it’s really for anyone to use, and it’s not for anyone’s one product.” Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is on the board at Apple, notes: “I’m an iPhone user, and a very happy iPhone user … but I believe Android will be used in many very different devices.” “Even competitors might adopt Android and use it, as long as it’s good enough,” adds Schmidt. “The key is to have the developers work on the applications so that they really emerge.” For their part, Google handset partners HTC Corp. and Motorola Inc. see no conflict. “Long-term fragmentation will stifle innovation in this industry, but collaboration will allow us to bring to market a connected, vertically integrated platform,” says Ed Zander, CEO at Motorola. “This is an accelerator to what we’re doing, complementary to open-source efforts with Linux. We do have other agreements with carrier partners and other vendors, and will continue to do what we’re doing there.” The key difference, Rubin says, between Android and any other operating system is that it is open to third-party developers, and anyone can take it and modify it for his or her own needs, thanks to an embedded Apache V2 license. That makes it compatible and complementary to existing technologies. “We are building handsets that are compatible with multiple networks, seamlessly integrated and transparent to the end user,” says Paul Jacobs, CEO at Qualcomm. “The wireless Internet is opening up a lot of opportunities for the entire industry, and it’s time to grow the pie instead of focusing on how we cut that up potentially for a wide number of operating systems and environments to be supported on handsets.” Android also does not signal the death of the carrier-locked handset. Despite the capabilities for creating an open-access device that a user can load and tweak as much as one would a PC, the business model will be left up to the carrier. If the industry wanted to create a completely locked-down device on Android, it could do that, Rubin admits. However, he says total lockdown is also “highly unlikely,” since restrictions on Internet capabilities mean less value for the end user. Nonetheless, we won’t see Android-based mobile softphones anytime soon, according to Rubin. “Handsets are embedded with applications and capabilities, a fact that makes it hard for end users to upgrade them,” Rubin says. “So Android as a softphone? We’re not there yet.” He adds: “Contrary to a lot of speculation, we won’t see a completely ad-driven phone on this platform for some time.” Open Handset Alliance Founding Members Aplix corp. www.aplixcorp.com
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