Re the GooglePhone -
sez WSJ:
Google Inc. is trying to shake up the wireless industry by helping to create cheaper phones that can access advanced Internet services -- and carry its lucrative advertising. Now that the Internet giant has cemented an alliance with 33 partners, the question is whether they will follow through on its attempt to change the rules of the game.
What you need to know is:
(i) Planet Mobile, by not changing its closed and price gouging ways, is attracting covetous gazes on its real estate from Google, Apple, fixed Telcos, Virgin etc etc.
(ii) All across its value chain, from Content, Aggregation (Google), Distribution (WiFi, WiMax) and end Device (Apple) there are now people busy trying to wrest control away from it.
(iii) The outsiders will eventually win, because thats what the users want. Planet Mobile will diversify and one by one give in as - simply put - the barbarians at the gate can subsidise phone usage and get benefits elsewhere (eg Googe and Ads) so can outlast the operators.
Will this particular consortium work?
Maybe, probably not - as the
Fake Steve notes:
As for the consortium partners, of course right now they're all pretending to go along, because what the hell, they get their names into the press release as being associated with Google and who cares if anything ever comes of it? It's called releaseware. Do you really think all those other companies are really going to come out with any products? You really think they're just dying to help Google come into their market and scoop up all the money for itself?
Of course not - but they all want to overthrow the current status quo. My enemy's enemy and all that....the point is, they are trying now whereas a few years ago they were not. This sends a message to the overall 'Net industry....The Wall is up there as much for the breach as for the observance.
GiGaOm notes "5 questions outstanding":
1. Google (GOOG) says it’s open source, letting you download it and do whatever — except that carriers can create their own locked-down versions of the software with Android. That doesn’t seem very open to me.
Yes, but - as with the Google SocNet - its a start in the right direction. Better than nothing. Momentum is better than inertia.
2. Google says it is happy to share revenues from advertising with the carriers. Which is good news for the carriers, but if you are a Google shareholder, you want to know how much is going to be kicked back to the carriers, and if this will have a material impact on Google’s financials.
Give us a break...do we know the exact returns on the actual financials in any new deals at this stage?
3. The first Android device won’t hit the market till the second half of 2008, and that, too, from one handset maker, HTC. Now as a developer, why would you opt for this platform when you have other options? (Apparently the browser inside the device will support desktop browser-compatible apps, which is a good thing.)
Right now they have no better options. The whole mobile industry is notorious for phones not interworking. Its a write many / read once industry.
4. None of the handset partners are betting the farm on Android, but are instead hedging their bets. HTC will continue to do Windows Mobile (MSFT), an OS that makes them a lot of money. (A little arm-twisting from Redmond can go a long way). Motorola (MOT), on the other hand, is a founding member of LiMo Foundation, a rival group that has the backing of carriers looking to Linux Mobile as an OS option. So which effort are they going to put their resources towards?
Sure, but they are starting to place short options
against the operators - thats significant
5. With the exception of admitting that it is Linux-based and can work with Qwerty, non-Qwerty and different types of screen sizes, no real details are available on the tech specs of Android. For that we’ll have to wait. Andy Rubin did point out that it will need a 200-MHz ARM processor at the very least, so for some time it is going to be a smartphone-focused OS environment.
As is just about every mobile multimedia service....cheap phones do voice calls, more complex phones do multimedia. But Moore's law is operant in phones as well as PC's and people change [hones more often.
