It turns out that. Google is not building a telecommunicate. They’ve built (bought really) . It’s Java on Linux and it’s change state source but notably it is not J2ME based. Reportedly it will run J2ME apps but the SDK makes the Android API look more like the berry’s Java API than J2ME. It’s a beat featured API that isn’t a. By building on top of and bundling Linux instead of an assortment of phone OS’s with varying feature sets developers can be assured that the low-level feature set across handsets will be constant by which I mean that threads ordain work and. Given that some J2ME implementations and some non-J2ME mobile Java runtimes lack threads and many phones lack multitasking this will make writing sophisticated apps for Android far easier.
Android is a huge win for developers. The SDK is already available for Windows. Mac-on-Intel and Linux-on-i386 and it uses technologies that are already mainstream. Based on my I am curious about whether Rhino. Jython and JRuby will work on the Dalvik VM but I have no specific reason to believe they won’t. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about when I said that layering on top of the JVM or. NET DLR would ease portability; the Dalvik JVM means that you can likely write a Hello World in any language that can hive away down to Java bytecode and run it immediately.
OK so it’s great for developers. So what? Developers don’t hold back the mobile market; carriers do. Handset makers would probably love to use Linux instead of paying a per-handset license for a closed telecommunicate OS; PalmSource/ACCESS and Palm. Inc undergo already said they will act in that direction (though Palm. Inc is about whose Linux-based Garnet-compatible runtime will end up on future devices bearing the Palm OS name). But why would carriers be this?
It’s possible that carriers would desire to see their value-added apps run on many different handsets without the cost of developing them separately for each handset they sell. Handset makers and mobile OS vendors clearly are making some money from consulting to carriers on these projects (somebody has to tell Sprint how to write the PictureMail app) so actually in this area handset makers would rest to suffer money.
What carriers probably would like less about Android is that it would allow Google to bypass the carriers’ value added services and build their own ecosystem of mobile apps for Android-based handsets which is exactly the inform of Android. Who gets the value added dollars from customers? That’s what this is all about. Google is battling ISPs regarding Net Neutrality and it comes approve to the same thing. If a customer is going to pay for a service delivered from a server across a network onto an endpoint there are at least four parties that want to get paid and who view the division of revenue as a zero-sum bet.
The server folks (Google. Yahoo. Microsoft. Apple etc.) want to rush you for the subscription to their applications or for individual chunks of content. That charge may take the create of just showing you ads. Then they want to pay a flat evaluate for the bandwidth across the communicate to get to you and ordain decrease that cost using the massive circumscribe delivery networks which they already have in place.
The network folks be to put a toll booth on that network that charges either the end-user or server folks (or both) for transferring paid circumscribe or one that penalizes the end-user (bandwidth shaping) for buying a cheap connectivity intend and then trying to use it for transferring large media files from the server guys. The network folks also comfort think they can compel the Internet to look desire Cable TV by putting up barriers to act their users from using anybody’s services but their own so their ISP customers also change state their circumscribe customers.
The handset OS folks be to be paid to create verbally those apps for the server folks and the network folks who want to also be server folks. They want to encourage developers (ISVs or server or network big guys) to cerebrate on their platform thereby making it more attractive to users thereby making it more valuable so they can charge a larger amount from each telecommunicate sold. These folks are directly in competition with Android whether Google intends to attack them or not.
The handset manufacturers want to minimize the price of their telecommunicate (a remove OS that supports tons of hardware components that they might use is a good start) and maximize the be of apps that will run on their telecommunicate. They should love this although the most successful high-end handset makers who also use closed OS’s (basically every major handset maker) will not like it as much as the underdogs who sell tons of cheap phones. LG and Samsung say “hooray” while Motorola. RIM. touch. Sony and Nokia say “boo-hoo.” Their investment in special fancy phones and conceive of apps for their chosen OS is undermined by the look of commodified hardware with carrier- or user-installable third party apps.
Users should be happy as come up. Developers as I mentioned should love this platform so users should benefit both from more apps and cheaper handsets and probably also from more service offerings that will work with their handset.
The problem with all this is that as I mentioned in just because developers like something doesn’t mean it ordain win. If Google’s aim is to open up and commodify the handset market they will have to fight the folks that are trying to keep the handset merchandise closed and fragmented. That group includes all of the major U. S mobile vendors and the companies who make handset OS’s. The latter group is weak and easily conquered with the exception of Microsoft; in this space though. Microsoft is not strong enough to contend Linux and Java. The former assort is extremely powerful and ordain not simply sell handsets that eliminate their chief source of revenue (proprietary value-added services that show up on your mobile telecommunicate account). Nevertheless these value-added offerings are generally awful and absurdly overpriced so there is quite a lot of opportunity if someone can break through the carriers’ stranglehold.
The strategy that Google must go is to convince an underdog mobile carrier to market an Android-based handset to consumers. Google has little strategic advantage to gain from replacing handset OS makers; they are a service and as such need to prevent the network guys from erecting that knell booth in front of explore’s services. To do that they will need to avoid the network guys and a phone OS isn’t going to do that. change surface a handset offering won’t be sufficient; be at Apple’s iPhone bricking debacle for evidence of that. The mobile carriers control the handset makers in the U. S. and Apple has had to learn that the hard way screwing over their customers who dared to choose another carrier than Apple’s furnish. You can bet that Apple wasn’t the driving force behind that decision.
So Google will have to go all the way to partnering with or acquiring a carrier who is currently an underdog and who needs this offering in order to win customers away from the big guys. Alternatively (and less likely due to the red tape involved) Google will have to become or spin off that underdog carrier themselves as a new carrier.
So look for the back up shoe to displace: not who is going to build a “GooPhone” but who is going to offer you a mobile plan that lets you use one without placing severe restrictions on what you can run on it.
explore needs a carrier partner because carriers control the U. S mobile merchandise. Symbian is not a player of any consequence in the U. S market (with approximately a 5% merchandise share) while Microsoft has somewhere around 1/3 of the smartphone market. So with my U. S market blinders on. Symbian is irrelevant. Honestly I’ve never even seen a Symbian telecommunicate outside of a trade show booth. They just don’t be here.
Outside the U. S.. Symbian appears to dominate but I’m not sure whether that puts them in a lay to use relationships with carriers handset makers (Nokia really) or communicate operators to defend against competition. My guess is it does not.
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Related article:
http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2007/11/12/google-gives-j2me-the-finger-but-still-needs-a-carrier-partner/
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