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.

Android ready for Primetime?

I recently read the title headline in a published article; "Android not ready for primetime". At first I was put back; I love the phone and the software. But like most of Google's products such as gmail, earth... they are in a semi perminant status of "Beta". They do this so users do not complain to much while they work our their business model. But a beta Operating System that has customer purchasing phones and developer producing apps is a bit of a problem. When apps don't work, most of the time the user blames the developer. Though this is not alway true, Microsoft is blamed constantly about problem that they had no part in. That is, badly designed or untested apps that cause MS machines to behave poorly.

The Android OS is a great system with a lot of potental if handled correctly. My hopes are high that once companies such as Motorola get involved the OS will come out of beta and become production quality. If not it will fall by the wayside like so many "science projects".

MyMedBox for Android released

My company Communication Software Inc. released a new application for the Google Android Phone named "MyMedBox" This application provides patients with a secure medication record on their phone. This is the first release of the product and their will be more to come. Personal Health Records are believed by many to be a vehicle to saving money in overall health cost.

The application can be downloaded for free at Google Market.

G1 is here the Paradigm shift has started

I just picked up my G1 for T-mobile in downtown Portland yesterday. It is one cool phone, not as cool as the iphone but the real value of the G1 is in an apartments in Kansas, the back streets of China, sitting by the pool in India. That is, the programmers around the world that are working on the next killer application that will run on Android software Stack. Think about it, it is the software that gives the computer it's value. The more software the more value. Now add the multiples of all of the manufactures and carriers that can use the Android software in their phones for very little development cost. It will have the same effect on the phone world as Linux had on the computer world. This will also assist the carrier and end users to reduce the cost of cell phones by having access to a phone that will run on many cell systems and the same software that runs on multiple phone.

Open markets will always win over closed propriety systems. Google made the investment to open the cell market. Other phones such as iPhone and Blackberry will still have their place in the market. We will have to wait to see who prevails. www.motionPHR.com

Android and the future of hand computers

Google is releasing it's first mobile software platform Android, on a T-mobile network, NTC phone in a few weeks. This phone will compeat on many fronts with the Apple iPhone. Like the iPhone independent developers can develop software application to run on the phones. iPhone has made a quantum leap with their phone platform. I would be first to say that the iPhone is one of the best design consumer electronic devices that I have every used.

Google entered the cell phone market after seeing the response to the iPhone. The major difference between the iPhone and Android is that Google is not building or selling phones like Apple. They are producing an open source software platform that will could run on any manufactures produced phone. The other difference is that Google is opening up the entire API (software package) to outside developers all over the world. You may ask, why and who cares. Look at it this way, the more applications that you can get for a computer/smartphones the more value it has for the consumer.

Before selecting a platform to build an application on I looked a both platforms. I also attended a conference where I got to hear from both platform developers. The major complaint from the iPhone developer was that Apple did not open the platform to all developers and that Apple has a select group of programmers that gets preferential treatment which included access to more of the iPhone facility such as BlueTooth. Don't get me wrong I think that Apple is the best product available in the PC market and hands down the iPhone is way ahead of the pack. My main concern is that Apple made this type of mistake before with their closed system architecture. This provided an unknown company named MicroSoft with the opportunity to take their market. Closed systems do not work in our open systems environment. Mash-up is where it is at in the Web 2.0 world.

Welcome In the Beginning

Hello to the world,

I would like to introduce myself, my name is Jeff Brandt I am a technologist and entrepreneur. I have a degree in Computer Science from the Univ of OK and I have been working with leading edge technology for many years. The consistence theme to my career is phones, first terrestrial then mobile.

I started this blog to bring together ideas and thoughts of Web 2.0 communication and uses for mobile devices for the 21 century. One of the most interesting fact that I have noticed is that USA is far behind the rest of the world in Mobile and Web 2.0 use. 70% of all facebook users are from outside of the USA. While working in Asia developing Mobile software for an Indonesian company I observed that everyone in Singapore had cellular phone. You could not even get a cab without a phone, this was 1996. Most people outside of the USA do not have laptops or desktop computers but they do have cellphones. It is becoming the norm in the US that younger people do not have landlines but they have cellphones. So, what does this mean? THE market is huge and oportunities are endless. The tiny screens are here to stay and the growth potential is great.

So join in on my discussions of moblile phone, Web 2.0 and the futureshock of the industry.