Android at this place and Time

You can ask almost anyone on the street; what is an iPhone? In most cases they can tell you. But when asking if they are familiar with the Android Phone, most likely they are not. They might have heard of the Google phone or G1 but not in most cases. This is the first problem with the platform, name recognition. I read articles about smartphones every week in publications like the Wall Street Journal. They always mention the iPhone and Blackberry but almost never the Google/Android/G1 phone. If consumers don't know what it is they surely will not buy it.

As for the platform itself, it is young and Open Source. I have a love hate relationship with Open Source. I have developed many enterprise projects with Open Source and I can tell you this, it is not for free. I have a nickname for it, "Open Sore". But if a company like SUN or IBM gets behind the Android project like they did with Java, Android will be a great platform to build a business upon. Motorola, the developer are listening.

Google produced a really cool platform, Android, and they turned it over to Open Source, which I commend them and think it was in their best interest a smart thing to do. Developing smartphone OS is not Google's primary business. It will take a company/s to lead Android to the next level of acceptance. I still do not understand why Microsoft didn't use Android as the base in their latest release of MSMobile, but I don't understand why they didn't build MS 7 on Linux, oh whatever, I shouldn't get started on that.

As for the Android platform itself, it still has a ways to go before reaching maturity, both in the OS and Tools. As for the Android OS on the phone as a consumer, I love it. I carry both the iPhone and Android phones, both have some great features and Apps. Android Apps have the potential to be much more powerful and feature rich then the iPhone because the features in the SDK, Open Source and Apples heavy restrictions. I mention the word potential because most of the apps to date on the Android are ok at best.

Currently, there is not a good App store for Android on the web that has a reasonable pricing stucture. iTunes blows Google Market away. Google Market doesn't even have a real web store to purchase Apps. Secondary Web stores like Handango want 40% of the profit leaving little for the developer. Low price point expectation and noise from the crowded market has made Enterprise applications simply out of the question. Businesses normally do not buy Enterprise software at the same place that sell iFart Apps and games. I expect these problems will be worked out in time.

I see the same thing happening in the Apps market that happened in the late 1990's Internet Boom/Bust. A lot of people were in the business that new nothing about business or creating Web apps. It will just take a bit of time to flush out the market.

I envision three real players in the near future, Blackberry, they have the business market for now because they can communicate with Outlook, iPhone, they have the entertainment market and Apple like it that way. They also have the coolness factor Android, they have a chance to take the Enterprise and business market for verticals such as financial and health care. But who knows, there may be ten more OS platforms next year, only time will tell.

Jeff
motionPHR.com
mymedbox.com

Starting to see where Android could take the Market

Motorola is betting the farm on Android which is great for Android manufacture and developers. Motorola like Apple need to make a profit off of their Smartphone production. Motorola is just the type of company that Android needs to move up the ladder of recognition and sales.

iPhone is a great platform but Apple has had many stumbles on the way to the top, especially with the development community. What I have learn from the early days at CyberCash it is not alway best to be first. Most non-proprietary developers (java, open source) want to have the freedom to express their art in there development. A tightly closed environment such as Apple stifles developers ideas and best products. On the other side of the coin, Apples closed environment has help them to produce good stable products. Motorola may have the blend of both worlds. Motorola has the tools an oportunity to lead the smartphone market. It will depend on if they can get back to their roots, building good products, with good support. I hope they also learned their lessons with the Iridium Project that you cannot move all of your development offshore and keep control. It will also depend on their marketing, Apple hands down has the marketing down.

We will have to wait and see what happens. As a developer of products for both the iPhone and Android, May the better phone win. As a developer of both platforms I will have to go with Android.