Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Android comes to Play: GooMo and the Future

Ahhh the future.  Three weeks ago we knew there would always be investment banks....

The first "GPhone" is being released today and so is born the first credible competition for the iPhone.  Do not misunderstand, the phone released today could be terrible.  

It is the first credible competition for the iPhone.  Google does not care about the device, they continue to look for ways to expand and protect their search and advertising franchise.

Great Article by Greg Sterling outlines the market and how the iPhone has been really a "proof of concept"  device that will lead to other, more and better devices.  Regardless of what WinMo and Blackberry had done up until the iPhone was introduced, they did not actually get used in a way that makes the internet the internet.

There are a lot of WinMo and Blackberry devices sold and in use, its just that they are not used for anything but texting and email.  (as measured by hits )  [if WinMo is WinMo, should Android be GooMo?]

To Google the internet is advertising and the "Mobile internet" is the future.  Andy Rubin points out in the Google Blog There are more mobile phones in use today by people that have NEVER had a PC (of any kind) than there are currently PC's.  To grow Google must be as ubiquitous in Mobile as they are on our desktops.  It is not important to Google that Android be anything but a minor success, they just need it to be enough of a threat to insure that Google will continue to serve mobile advertising on many devices.

So later today when people are talking about how Great or terrible the actual device is remember that this is the first of what will be MANY from many competitors.  WinMo will eventually be trashed by Microsoft and they will start from scratch and there may be even more players that we have never heard of that will innovate their way into the space.  The point is that in a couple of years there will be better internet enabled phones than we have now available from a number of sources.  

Today is the day that Apple begins to give up some of its 100% market-share in the next generation of mobile platforms. (of which the iPhone is the only current offering).  

We know that there will be insane growth in this market for the next couple of years and that we all will get to benefit from innovations in the devices /methods / cost.  We do not know what those devices would be.   For the Near term iPhone will play "PC" to Googles "Mac"/Android.  It will be fun to watch.





1 comment:

Brian Levine said...

Truly interesting times in the mobile market. A market that's truly broken with two year contracts and me-too handets that all look the same (until the iPhone). And rather than looking at the iPhone as a sign that people want something different in their phones, companies rushed out to build their own version of the iPhone. Hopefully Google will be able to provide another push for an industry that really needs it.