Tag Archive for 'Android'

Choice is a Damn Fine Thing!

Published by Ben Kepes on September 25, 2008 in Business, Design, IT and Strategy. 0 Comments

I posted a few days ago about a guy who created an iPhone app that competed with a native iPhone offering. Apple subsequently decided to withhold acceptance of his application - citing concerns about the competing nature of his offering. My post was under the guise of asking how Apple manages to get away with being this evil.

Well now our hero, Alex Sokyrynsky has an option - Google’s Android. Sure it’s new and there’s not a lot of devices yet (well one and it’s only just been released) but nonetheless it’s an option. As Alex said;

All I wanted was for someone from Apple to contact me and tell me how we can work it out so that I get into the app store. Instead, Apple took the cowards way out by simply disabling features in my developers portal. This seems like a childish move for a company that has been proving such high quality service and products in the past.
A lot of people have speculated that Apple might incorporate features similar to Podcaster in the future. If they do, they will simply be stealing from developers (me in this case)…
I plan to make Podcaster for the Android operating system. At least there, I will be welcomed instead of being walked all over. I will also try to port the app to a jailbroken iPhone.
So a final note to developers. Try to stay out of Apple’s grey area. Don’t build anything that would compete with Apple. Don’t spend too much time before you submit to the app store because it could be all for nothing.

If nothing else Google’s Android levels the playing field - no longer is Apple the only kid on the block with a cool device who can run roughshod over anyone who wants to come play - hopefully the competition will level the playing field somewhat for the developers.

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Chrome rounds out Google’s platform plays

Published by The Unreasonablemen on September 9, 2008 in Business. 0 Comments

A guest post from the unreasonablemen.net

A year or so ago I went to a Salesforce.com event in which they trotted out a Google Apps exec to support their no software message.  The guy (I forget his name) was delayed coming into Sydney and so was pretty jet lagged. His only piece of take home message   “ we’re [at Google] a big believer in the no software message”

Kinda interesting considering you have to download and install the Chrome software (as an aside is the browser morphing to legendary status, the same but different from ‘software’). This aside, the point was this. Cloud delivered applications require a robust internet connection and a browser.  

This dependency on the browser and its ability to arbitrage Google has meant they’ve had to act and build something. This to me is the same play as Android, something I wrote about a wee while ago. It has nothing to do with the browser, but everything to do with the internet services that Google wants to deliver or protect. Search, advertising and apps.

Android is about giving Google a play mobile where they have no current advertising stream. Chrome is about a applications platform (and i suspect) a tool to get more information about web habits (which will enhance the advertising business).  Google needs this because the ability for adds to be blocked in a browser by a plugin (see Nick Carr’s two pieces on Adblock) or by an ISP are trivial.  This represents a very real threat to Google’s lifeblood… and to their credit they’ve innovated.

Microsoft is trying to but is clearly struggling… the browser as the OS of the future isn’t a picture that they particularly want. For that reason I believe they should get the hell outta the consumer market and focus on business. (more on this in a latter post).  Microsoft are also failing in the mobile space. This piece by Tim O’Reilly really sums up the mess they’ve gotten themselves into. It also supports my hypothesis, Google’s building platforms that they are hoping will be web on-ramps.  How successful they are in doing this will be interesting, given the issues they’ve had with robustness before.  I actually don’t think they care if Chrome dominants or not, I believe that as long as there are others who jump on their path and deliver the same outcome…. Ads served up, easy and reliable access to applications they will be happy

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Is the gPhone back on the cards?

Published by Ben Kepes on July 14, 2008 in Business, Design, IT and Strategy. 0 Comments

This week has all been about the iPhone - whether it was hyperbole about the pricing of plans, excitement over the new apps or general fan boy talk about uber design - not much made news that wasn’t iPhone related.

One thing that didn’t garner the attention it could have occurred at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Media Conference in Idaho. Their a dozen or so journalists were treated to over an hour with the two Google founders and the CEO. So what did Page, Brin and Schmidt say?

Media week reports that;

The trio of Google execs also used the opportunity to talk about the inroads the company is making with its own branded mobile phone as a replacement for the iPhone

Of course this report might be misconstrued and they might just be talking about their mobile OS, Android. But in this week of iPhone lust, a potential offering from Google comes as quite a relief.

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Android - people are missing the point.

Published by The Unreasonablemen on June 3, 2008 in Business, Design, IT, SaaS, Strategy and Web x.0. 0 Comments

A Guest post from the unreasonablemen.net

There has been a bunch of commentary about Google’s mobile platform Android. Most commentators seem to be banging on about how it is going after the Apple iPhone (R/WW seems to be fixated on this aspect). This analysis misses the point. Of course Android will try to emulate the best in class product, there’s no point going out with something 2nd rate. But Android is much much more important to Google than just an iPhone competitor, Android is Google’s punt on protecting its advertising business (98% of Google’s revenue).

How? Well we are moving into a mobile device dominated world. This trend has been happening for awhile and is a function of scale and Moore’s law. (basically laptops have gotten cheaper, performance is better etc). The PDA I have on my desk right now, clearly sits right between my desk phone and my notebook in terms of functions and performance. When you factor in cloud computing benefits and Web apps (SaaS in some cases), PDAs aren’t that far away from replicating at least 80% traditional computing hardware functionality (and by association replacing those hardware units).

Xero believes this trend is happening and has come out with an iPhone supported version of its SaaS Accounting app to get into that space early.

The proof is there, check out some of the stats in this (surprisingly from R/WW) piece from Sarah Parez about how fast the mobile web is growing (and here from GigaOm).

The implications of this are enormous. There is no dominant OS provider (why do you think MS has listed Mobile as one of its core strategies?). The other major player seeing this trend and having panic moments is Google. Think about it, if I use my mobile to browse the web more and more, then I logically would use it for search. That means Google becomes less relevant in advertising because (you try this) there are NO Adwords displayed in a Google mobile search.

Connect those dots, growing mobile internet use, no Adwords….

So, if you are Google what do you do? Well you try to create a mobile platform that is hugely popular and ensure that in that OS is a browser (or some other special feature) that provides you with an avenue to protect your advertising revenue (or provides you with a new one). This platform must be hugely popular for two major reasons.

1) for your advertising revenues to stay the same you need ubiquity (similar to their 67% of US search type ubiquity)

2) without that kind of demand, no carrier will support Android mobiles.

GigaOm outlines a couple of reasons for that here, but more importantly Google hasn’t exactly made a whole bunch of friends in the carrier world with its stance around