With an actual handset now launched, Google's Android platform looks set to become a runaway success, generating a new handset ecosystem of chip developers, software designers and application developers. Or does it?
T-Mobile's launch of the G1, the HTC-built device built on Google's Android platform and OS, generated big headlines recently. But, with Samsung and Motorola also slated to produce Android handsets this year, and with Symbian taken in-house and then due to be open sourced by Nokia, are we witnessing a deeper change in the mobile OS market. Far from consolidation in smartphone OS, it seems that operators are being asked to support a couple of major flavours of Linux (Android and LiMo), as well as Symbian, Windows Mobile, as well as Blackberry and Apple's proprietary systems.
So let's start by understanding what Google is up to here. First off, it's not really about the devices, says Gartner's Carolina Milanesi,
Milanesi says, "Google is moving into the mobile devices market not to become yet another mobile phone manufacturer but to enable a large addressable market for its services and applications. The G1 is the first of a series of devices that will come to market and will be optimised to offer consumers a superior experience when using Google services and applications. Without such services and applications the G1 will risk being "just" another teach screen device trying to compete for consumers' preference this Christmas."
"The G1 is the first device coming to market supporting Google's operating system Android. Although this will give us a taste of what the platform will be able to do, we are expecting some limitations given this is the first device," agrees Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "There will be more to come in 2009 when manufacturers such as Samsung and LG will deliver their devices."
And Cozza is bullish about Android's potential to dominate mobile Linux OS.
"Android has the potential to become the de facto operating system (OS) for Linux and we expect sales to reach around 10 per cent of the smartphone market in 2011," she says.
That demands a response from the other main Linux body, the LiMo Foundation. Although it has many big names on board, including operators, Limo Foundation suffers in PR terms from not being Google. Yet its chairman puts up a spirited defence of its role, and highlights problems for Google.
The LiMo Foundation's Morgan Gillis produced an official statement on the Google Android G1 handset, viz, "As an organization that was brought into being by the mobile industry to unlock innovation and catalyze choice throughout the value system — and especially for the mobile consumer — LiMo Foundation welcomes the launch of the G1 device using Google's Android platform. We believe that the G1, following after the 23 handsets already brought to mobile consumers using the LiMo Platform, provides further support to the widely held view that Linux is now positioned to become the most widely deployed OS within open mobile handsets.
"We also look to Google to use the occasion of the launch of the G1 to openly answer some of the important questions outstanding since the Google Android platform was announced almost a year ago: which services will be made available to mobile consumers on Google Android handsets but not on other open mobile handsets; will G1 users have an open and free choice about whether or not they subscribe to Google's services; why has Google elected to build its own handset platform rather than working collaboratively with the mobile industry on the available alternatives?"
There are also concerns in the market that although it may lead to a consolidation, eventually, around Linux, it has fragmented the Java environment.
Alex Moukas, CEO, Velti, says, "Android is good for the industry if it can help offer a broad, open, standard, platform on which people can build stable, consistent user experiences. However one challenge is that it has fragmented an already fragmented J2ME environment by creating yet another non-standard implementation. The fragmentation of Java means that developers might start looking elsewhere for mobile tools unless there is some consolidation; and Apple is doing a pretty good job of making applications easy to write at the moment. One thing that Android's launch does do is it drags mobile operating systems into the consumer psyche and handset purchase decisions even more. This results in the continual evolution of the mobile community and ultimately how people interact with each other, and how brands will interact with consumers."
So how will developers respond to this Open Source mobile platform. At the G1's launch, there was some criticism that the third party (ie non-Google) applications on display were fairly uninspiring and niche.
Yet one of the main mobile music application providers, Shazam's CEO Andrew Fisher says, "For content providers and third party applications, the launch of Google Android is certainly exciting. Shazam is very interested in the Android platform and we will be watching it closely. Shazam's strategy is to partner with a wide range of handset manufacturers and operators across the world to offer our customers the very best music discovery and sharing experience. If Google can be half as successful on the mobile as it has been on the internet, consumers are set to have a great mobile internet experience."
For mobile email developer, Synchronica, Android becomes just another platform it has to support. Carsten Brinkshulte, CEO of Synchronica, talls us, Google Android is just another smartphone platform that will work with our mobile email and synchronization middleware right out of the box, just as we supported the Apple iPhone when it launched last year. Google Android will be addressing a very similar market to the iPhone: i.e. early adopter, wealthy, high tech users. Therefore, it's unlikely that we will see Gphones in the emerging or mass markets any time soon.
Brinkshulte also cautions against letting the hype take over around smartphone sales, counseling that the action will still be at the feature phone end.
"There's a common misconception that every time a major vendor jumps into the market, we will see smartphone sales surging. This does not reflect the reality. My prediction is that the Gphone will have very little impact on the mass market, which is dominated by feature phones," he says.
Rikke Helms, managing director of Global Telecoms at Dexterra and VP of EMEA, welcomes the development, as well. "Despite the odd bit of criticism received to date, Android is positive step for the mobile industry, and Google should be applauded for developing an open-source operating system that actually encourages more application developers to get involved, rather than locking them out. It must now take advantage of the huge market opening up for mobile business applications, as more and more enterprises demand bespoke software that caters to their own mobile workforce needs, rather than relying on the generic applications available on existing devices.
"As developers have been working with the Android platform for many months now, Google looks to have a huge advantage of being able to offer customisable devices to both businesses and consumers alike from the get-go," he says.
And yet all this has happened in parallel to a major movement in the Symbian sphere to open up its code and platform next year. Symbian and Nokia deny this is prompted by any pressure from other open OS environments, but there's little doubt in some minds this has been the motivating factor – make the OS open, goes the theory, and then differentiate and extract value at the applications layer. With years in the market and the bulk of smartphones sold, Symbian has two key advantages. And certainly it has attracted strong industry support for its Symbian Foundation vision.
The plans for the establishment of the Symbian Foundation and royalty-free licensing of foundation software are:
1) The acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected to close in Q4, 2008, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
2) Software assets are contributed to the foundation, including Symbian OS and S60 by Nokia, UIQ technology by Motorola and Sony Ericsson and MOAP(S) by NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
3) This contributed software will be available under a royalty-free license to foundation members from the first day of Symbian Foundation operations, expected 1H 2009.
4) The Foundation will work to unify the platform, with the first unified foundation release expected in 2009.
5) The foundation will work to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)
Since June 2008, 40 companies have confirmed commitment to the initiative, including the ten initial board members: AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, and Symbian says hundreds more have expressed interest in joining.
Among them is browser company Opera, a company with an obvious interest in open operating systems, and having strong rival platforms to Android.
"Symbian Limited was one of the first companies to support Opera's vision of how the Web one day would be available on any device. Today, that vision is becoming reality," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "As the market leader in standards-driven, cross-platform Web browsing innovation, we expect to offer our expertise in developing compelling and captivating Web browsing experiences. We look forward to the opportunity to join the foundation and help drive the ongoing evolution of the leading mobile operating system."
So it's clear that although there has been broad agreement for Android, it doesn't meet operators' stated aim of reducing the number of platforms they need to support, and it exists still in many minds as a vehicle for Google to dominate the applications and services market. With Google at best an uneasy bedfellow for many operators, there remains a great game to play for as the mobile internet, driven by increasing mobile broadband access, becomes truly mass market.