Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Oh, It’s a Wonderful and Predictable World

Why is Om wasting his analytical mind and his words on his post today? The reasons behind the news from Verizon Wireless today can be simply narrowed to the first once he mentions: It’s all about the upcoming spectrum auction. And it is also about Android… Oh, which by the way is also all about the upcoming spectrum auction…

So it is only a matter of time before the rest of the herd follows. The big question for me is which carrier will embrace Android? Just for fun, my money goes to T-Mobile.

Finally, as soon as I figure out how exactly Verizon’s open platform will work and how it will benefit (or hurt – always a possibility) the industry, I will post some more….

Friday, November 16, 2007

Android… New Player, Same Old Song

Attention mobile application developers: the news is that you will now have yet another development platform to deal with. But why should this be a real issue to you anyway? Your present strategy is, and will probably continue to be to maximize your porting investments by focusing on the largest footprint available anyway. If you're looking for VC investment, however, it might wow some of your prospective investors to showcase your app on a a) an iphone and b) android.

It is not like I want to discount the effort undertaken by Google. It will certainly shake things up. And I still believe that few players have the vision and ability to transform the mobile industry, and Google is certainly at the top of my list. I have no doubt about the superiority of the technology either – I’d be scared if I were Windows Mobile, for example. Most importantly, I don’t think there is any other brand in the industry that could have the power to make their platform the de facto standard someday in the future as much as Google. Five years out, I expect Android to comprise a large share of handsets. But until then it is business as usual for application developers.

Seriously, can anybody out there seriously and sincerely focus on application developers’ needs today for once?

Why is it that everyone promising an open mobile platform these days seems to have a hidden – or not so hidden, such as the intent to bid for some coveted spectrum – agenda?