The Handset Supremacy: Google Android’s Mass Disruption

Then there’s Sprint-Nextel Corp.’s (S) XOHM WiMAX initiative, which soon will be under the auspices of the new Clearwire Corp. (CLWR). XOHM aims to offer mobile broadband access to the Internet, and, being based on the 802.16e standard, will benefit from third-party devices with embedded standardized clients, much the same way that a Wi-Fi client can be bought off the shelf, and can connect to any Wi-Fi network today.

But ABI Research analyst Phil Solis points out that open access is actually a bigger issue than just allowing devices to connect to the Internet in an unobstructed way. “There are degrees of open and there are multiple points along the way where "open" applies — OS (such as allowing applications to be used on the OS), device (such as not blocking applications and Internet access) and network (such as not blocking devices and Internet traffic),” he explained.

Google has somewhat conflated the issues in its rhetoric. “Mobile devices are sophisticated computers with access to the Internet, yet the vast majority of today's innovative Web applications are still built for PCs,” explained a Google spokesperson. “Android aims to change all that. It's a free, open-source mobile platform that any developer can use, and any handset manufacturer can install. By opening up mobile devices to all developers we believe we can drive greater innovation, and faster innovation, for the benefit of mobile users everywhere. Put simply, our hope is that the next big application will actually be built for mobiles, not PCs.”

The problem, of course, is that in mobile, developers are writing for a specific mobile OS — in this case, Android — not for the wider Internet per se. So instead of leveraging IP, using a set of Web Services and XML, along with basic HTML, to write applications that can be accessed via the Internet across platforms, developers are writing only for Android, and those apps obviously don’t translate across to other devices.

And Google isn’t alone when it comes to a cloudy open access position. Obviously the iPhone and its App Store comprise a closed ecosystem as well, only with more guidance from Apple as to what applications can be offered, where they can be offered and how developers can work together.

“Nothing will be as open as a Web-based application,” said Solis. “In respect to writing applications for devices, developers have to choose which OSs they will write applications for, and they will choose the most popular OSs.”

And that is why the handset folks soon will hold much more power than ever before. The G1, iPhone and Xperia launches, in particular, take the applications, customer support for those apps and, ultimately, value proposition out of the hands of the carriers. Will the winning model be the iPhone model, where AT&T can’t even sell the device itself? Or will it be the more closely partnered (and more subsidized) Google-T-Mobile approach? Or will Microsoft and Sony-Ericsson prove that a non-carrier-subsidized model will work? Only time will tell, but be sure that devices no longer are me-too endpoints.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines