“When Android was announced, I wrote that if ‘Google can deliver, the impact could be huge,’ but I caveated a major issue: Google would need to prevent the market from fragmenting and allow it to succeed where other mobile and desktop Linux implementations had failed,” Michael Gartenberg writes for Engadget. “Linux fragmentation remains one of the many reasons the open-source OS has failed to capture a meaningful share of the PC desktop market, and Android is rapidly following a similar path by fragmenting into different versions with different core feature sets, different users experiences and run different applications.”
Gartenberg writes, “I recently tried to install one of the few good Android games and found it won’t work on Nexus One as it has a nonstandard screen resolution. This isn’t just about older devices either — many new devices were announced at Mobile World Congress running either Android 1.5 or 1.6. When does it end? Either Google addresses the fragmentation issue immediately or it will find that Android suffers the same fate as Linux on the desktop.”
Read the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Andrew W.” for the heads up.]
Not to mention the HTC lawsuit.
Google is trying to get for cheap what the iPhone has after years of toil and research. I expect this to fail, and the HTC lawsuit to cripple the company.
It will take awhile tho.
People use Linux on the desktop?
theloniousMac,
No, people don’t use Linux on the desktop in any meaningful numbers. That would be Gartenberg’s point. The same fate awaits Google’s Fragmandroid.
“If you want to write great software, you have to make your own hardware” – Alan Kay
Says it all, really
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=:~)
Few companies have the patience to plot a long term course like Apple does. Anyone can come up with ideas and write code, but in their rush to get to market it’s rare to see a company take the time to keep redesigning until all the problems are resolved. Android is a one night stand…
Android will be a technological Oort cloud.
From Wikipedia:
Astronomers believe that the matter comprising the Oort cloud formed closer to the Sun and was scattered far out into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System’s evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
In it’s present and developing state, Android is doomed to niche-dom. It’s a great idea, but without consensus and a unified plan and specific hardware guidelines, they can’t hope to compete against the iPhone.
Even Microsoft seems to have acknowledged as much in their recent WinMob 7 announcement and it’s 3 typical hardware configurations.
Face it, Android is a place where Linux-minded tinkerers have a place to get lost, feel good about themselves and feel righteous.
Good for them.
If running a bunch of servers is your idea of fun. Somebody’s got to do it and i’m glad it ain’t me.
“Either Google addresses the fragmentation issue immediately or it will find that Android suffers the same fate as Linux on the desktop.”
Sorry- too late…
And, for that matter, it’s also too late for Windoze Mobile 7.
Every android phone sold is one that M$ doesn’t get a license fee
@bitjockey
what apple has survived is the dangerous transition from startup to a functioning production organization. google is experiencing some of that now. the transition can be masked by intermediate success, but the long term viability/profitability of the company in an aggressively competitive market is something you can only look back on after it has happened. sun, is a good example of the right stuff losing their bearings. can’t use dell because they never had the core engineering to invent their way out of trouble like apple can.
this is not to say apple has done it perfectly. they were pretty close to toast in 1997, when steve jobs returned to steer the ship and provide some adult supervision.
they key to survival is to fundamentally understand who you are and not let that be defined by products. the companies you see copying apple are exactly the latter. their long term success will be based on how successfully they can copy. apple on the other hand decides where it wants to go and goes there. that may change without steve jobs, but then again it may not. depends on who replaces him. since he influences the board. chances are that person will be hand selected by steve.
BTW, all those bright ideas on how apple should spend their cash reserves do not understand this thinking. apple’s competitors generally borrow money to fund their copying. for them it is only a matter of time or a dip in the economy. steve and the apple board understand their primary responsibility is the survival of the company, not quarterly earnings. their results speak for themselves when everyone else cannot reproduce these results in hard times.
Or any of the other mobile OS’s, such as WinCE.
@Dumped
Thelonius was using something called sarcasm. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
We long-timers know Mr. T. Mac as something of a wit.
Just like politics, if you try to be all things to all people, you end up being no good to anyone.
Could? It already has. Game developers are hitting brick walls because of variances in the touchscreens.
As much as I hate to admit it Microsoft, while arriving at the smart phone party late, maybe able to pick up all those dissappointed manufactures who were stood up by android switching updates and being non standard.
I only say this because those folks that went to the smart phone party quite clearly chose not to go wth Iphone, for what ever reason.
My hope is that Apple offers a different cheaper Iphonesque device that to t-mobile at least (and possibly Sprint/Verizion (non GSM version) )and call it something different so that AT&t;won’t have anything to sue over.
My t-moble contract is up in August so while I’ve been happy with them as well as my Samsung phone, an Iphone would be nice.
“(…) Android is rapidly following a similar path by fragmenting into different versions with different core feature sets (…)”
But… But… That’s Freedom of Enterprise, isn’t it ?
@Giles, not sure what you mean by Freedom of Enterprise. But if you mean that that’s the risk of an open source SDK approach in a competitive market, then yes, it is.
Android is a fragmented mess, a disaster in the making, hastened by google backstabbing its partners with n1.
I cannot understand how Wall Street is willing to pay PE multiples for Google of similar amounts as those for Apple. Googles only revenue stream worth mentioning comes from advertising. Its customers could turn off that revenue almost instantly. Some might think this idea is absurd, but with the move to mobile internet and apps, the internet that Google will be able to search will become less and less relevant. If this becomes the case, Google will offer little to no value to advertisers. Google knows this, and Android is a big fat hail mary pass. Apple on the other hand sucks you in with its elegance, and you don’t realize how dependent you’ve become on them and how much harder it gets all the time to leave… because the thought never occurs to you. I am no Apple fanboy, but I cannot imagine going back to Windows. Apple has a strong longterm outlook, stronger than Wall St. realizes. Conversely, Google is in a very precarious position, and nobody seems to realize it.
Android is just a quickie to get in the mobile market, keep up with Apple while taking advantage of WinMo and Nokia lapse and industry clamoring to imitate the iPhone, while Google invest in a longer term strategy in-house. Only Apple makes acquisitions to expand upon them. All other companies buys companies for quick return, and Android is no exception. The future of Google lies in its own <strike>webOS</strike> Chrome OS.
Great postings by Mr Reeee, mackle, and Thomas. Cheers to you three!
@theloniousMac, I do use Linux on the desktop.
I have an android device also.
Unless the iPhone is going to snap up virtually all of the market share and all the other phone manufactures shut their doors, Android is their best option and it will succeed.
But, it doesn’t look like it will ever be better than Apple’s product and that should be enough to keep all of us smiling.
Various android phones like the Moto Backflip is coming not pre loaded with Google but with Yahoo.
this is significant.
Google’s business model coming out with a free OS is that they can make money by running ads through Google search and services. If Android phones come loaded with Bing, Yahoo and their own apps (like the Backflip comes with AT&T;Navigator, Maps, Music etc) Google’s not going to be able to make money.
Will Google keep throwing resources at Android if they can’t secure revenue from it? Is Google worried that if they piss of partners like Motorola (releasing Nexus right after Droid) or phone makers like Apple they will drop Google search? There are rumors that Microsoft was trying to get iPhone to switch to Bing.
Search services pay for the privilege to be on a phone and now Google is in a bidding war.
(Perhaps Google shouldn’t have done Android but stuck closely with iPhone, Schmidt might still be on Apple’s board. If iPhone became the dominant smartphone like the iPod in music and if it ran Google, Google would have been sitting pretty But Google got greedy and is now fighting on all fronts).
The other thing not discussed much is that because there are so many Android manufacturers the market is divided and a single manufacturer doesn’t sell a lot of phones relative to the iPhone. The Droid is quoted as the big success but they only sold 250,000 in a week after launch after spending 100 million on advertising. Can Android hardware manufacturers keep R&D;, quality and advertising up if they don’t sell a lot?
If the rumors are correct, Google is in the process of unifying the operating systems across most if not all of the phones nullifying the point of this article.
Apple iPhone vs Google Andoid today is like Apple vs Microsoft 15+ years ago. Apple has historically provided closed systems that worked really well but remained niche products compared with Microsoft/Windows which provided a more open operating system on a near infinite number of hardware configurations and more able to satisfy the needs of a much broader range of customers.
Android today is being positioned to play the role of Microsoft.
I realized the other day that the folks at Google are not the geniuses I gave them credit for… They just have the best and most visited search engine which gives them instant research/marketing information into what customers want and need. That is why competitors need to worry whenever Google enters their market – Google has the ability to know more about any company’s customers than anyone else.
Android isn’t windows or msdos–it is cp/m.