Google’s googly
THOSE PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT the players in the battle for the hearts and minds of cellphone users had been set in concrete have been proven very wrong over the past year. First, Apple brought the iPhone to market and now an alliance of handset manufacturers, component suppliers, cellphone operators and software vendors has formed the Open Handset Alliance to deliver the next generation of mobile phones.
The alliance is centred on Internet giant Google, which is building the software that will make the phones run as well as working on making its Google services compatible with a cellphone.
Speculation was rife that Google was going to enter the handset business by launching a Google-branded handset. The speculation was only half right. Google announced its mobile phone platform instead of a cellphone. Dubbed Android, the software is backed by a number of cellular heavyweights, including Motorola, Qualcom, HTC, T-Mobile, Sprint and almost 30 other companies.
The idea is that the platform will allow phone manufacturers to build on top of the system that Google’s built. Because the platform is open, it will be possible for any manufacturer to release phones based on the technology. However, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform each manufacturer will be able to customise the look and feel of its phone’s user interface.
For ordinary consumers, the benefit would be a series of phones that while they may be from different manufacturers and look completely different on the surface, any program, such as a game that ran on one handset would also run on all the other handsets running Android.
Google is giving away its software for free, which may give it the edge on other phone software vendors that charge for the use of their software. Any company currently selling cellphones has to either build its software itself, as Apple has done, or buy an operating system from the likes of Symbian or Microsoft. That adds to the cost of selling the handset, something that inevitably gets passed on to buyers.
By creating this free and open environment, Google hopes to create a friendlier environment for its other services, such as advertising and mapping. The problem is that Google needs to move more aggressively into the mobile space and feels the current crop of operating systems doesn’t provide that.
Consumers are likely to feel that they’re now presenting a moving target to advertisers, and if the Android platform receives any traction, the potential for companies to target cellphone users could be greatly enhanced.
But the biggest threat to Android comes from the broad group of members that make up the Open Handset Alliance. Though fostering the development of standards, broad industry groupings can become bogged down in petty politics. And if Google – which will control the software that makes it all work – isn’t able to drive the initiative forward, then all the excitement over its cellphone may be for naught.
Finweek
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