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?