James Allworth writes for The Harvard Business Review, “Google was surely celebrating recently when Gartner reported that Android handsets outshipped Apple’s iPhone by close to a 2:1 margin.”
MacDailyNews Take: For clarification, the report to which Allworth refers was an estimate from Canalys of the U.S. market only in Q3 2010: 9.1 million Android handsets vs. 5.5 million iPhones. This may well be the high water mark for Android as convincing reports of iPhone coming to Verizon have likely frozen the iPhone wannabe market significantly for this quarter and, when and if Verizon gets the iPhone, buyers won’t have to settle for fake iPhones any longer.
Allworth continues, “But Google may regret the strategic choices that have led to this victory over Apple. To achieve the “win,” Google may have unwittingly created and trained a mercenary army of hardware manufacturers, willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder—whether that be Google, Baidu or Bing.”
“There is no doubt that Google understands the importance of the mobile web,” Allworth writes. “A large part of Google’s future will rely on advertising revenue driven by mobile devices, which is likely a key reason why Google decided to go into competition with its one-time ally, Apple… But Google might soon find the many third parties it has relied on to battle Apple have instead become a much greater threat than Apple ever was.”
“Baidu, the internet search engine that has successfully challenged Google for ownership of the Chinese market, has taken an even bolder approach. It’s reportedly in negotiations with a number of smartphone manufacturers to remove all references to Google, and replace them with Baidu,” Allworth reports. “Microsoft recently negotiated with Verizon that some of the Android phones that ship to Verizon customers will have Microsoft’s Bing, not Google, as the default search engine. And the manufacturers are getting in on the act too: Motorola recently released a new phone, the Citrus, based on Android, but shipping with Bing.”
Allworth writes, “Google is losing this fight. It’s a poorly kept secret that Google now has to pay Apple — and pay Apple a lot — to keep Google as the default search engine on the iPhone. It won’t be long before Google’s ‘allies’ in the Open Handset Alliance — the manufacturers making Android phones — realize that Google need them a lot more than they need Google.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: One is left wondering if Eric T. Mole thought this Android thing all the way through or if he did it the “Google way” – think it just about a quarter of the way through, quickly chuck it out there, and see what happens, perpetual-beta-style? The latter seems much more likely. Enjoy those U.S. Android sales figures next quarter when the fake iPhones are sitting next to real iPhones, Eric, you creepy bastage.
I have used bing and it sucks. Dont like yahoo that much either to much stuff on the page. I have to admit i do like google for search although i do sometimes look at others but very much prefer google.
As Julius Caesar trusted the Roman Senators.
“Microsoft recently negotiated with Verizon that some of the Android phones that ship to Verizon customers will have Microsoft’s Bing, not Google, as the default search engine.”
What kinda Frankenstein’s Monster phone is it that is a Verizon network device with Android software and Bing search, for Pete’s sakes.
Well usually apple fanboys don’t want to accept truth wholeheartedly…c’mon..even apple founder Mr.Wozniack agrees that Android will rule in the smartphone business and more and more people are starting to realize the real power of Android. Logically if Android is not a good OS it’s not gonna be as popular like now. Only in about 2 yrs Android has climbed up as the most prominant OS and those published numbers tell all. Yeah..just keep worshipping Mr. Jobs and hopefully the next Icrap don’t have antennagate and reception problem!!
Verizon and Sprint both use CDMA-based technology, which means means a huge amount of changes to the hardware (e.g. no SIM card). This may not seem a big deal in North America, but global companies prefer GSM-based networks as the rest of the world is nearly exclusively GSM-based networks….
BodyQuick
Now a days Google is giving its full attention to the advertising to increase its revenue. So I think the android is beaten in the market.
BodyQuick
@avi.
Absolutely impeccable logic, sir. Never has the consumer bought inferior technology loaded with a poor OS because it was cheaper.
@avi
Only he didn’t.
Oops
This is so freaking old & ill informed… With the FROYO update it allows the user to decide what search & mapping they want, and the carriers or manufacturers cannot remove Google as an option.
Btw, the handset manufacturers did not do this, Verizon did to abide by and finish up their contract with Microsoft. I returned my Galaxy S when I realized I couldn’t get Google until the FROYO update. Got a Droid X instead.
Story is FUD,FUD,FUD.
MDN should do a little research before publishing a moronic article like this & then making ill informed comments – DUH!
i think that you just dont like google because you are apple fanboys who are dissapointed and angry that android has surprassed the iphone.
i am sure you loved google stuff in your iphone before they went against apple in mobile.
and even now, apple has google search and google maps in the iphone.
android is just a better operating system with much more choice of devices for the consumer.
plus you dont need to insult people like the google ceo just because you dont like them
apple is just a perpetual number 2, deal with it
RIM and Nokia have OS development experience even if they are out of date. Palm had it too but failed for other reasons. Any manufacturer without an OS, and currently using Android can take two years to invest in their own proprietary OS development plans using Android 2.2 or 3 as their starting point. Samsung are two years into developing their own OS…Bada. This is a company used to making smart moves to carve a place for itself alongside Sony et al. It pushes the envelope to do that. It can surprise with its OS.
For the rest, there is no shortage of development talent around the world to take Android off in a hundred different, proprietary directions. After all Google can barely call Android or Chrome its own property. Oracle has an opinion on that.
I see Motoroid.
HTCAndro
LGoid
etc. etc
Fireworks and corporate suicide.
“even apple founder Mr.Wozniack agrees that Android will rule”
Do your homework. Woz was misquoted and said nothing of the kind.
“With the FROYO update it allows the user to decide what search & mapping they want, and the carriers or manufacturers cannot remove Google as an option.”
Except that the carriers and manufacturers aren’t obligated to give you FROYO, not as they receive it from Google. They’ll give you a hacked version to support their “carrier requirements” just as they always have.
Android as a software platform will be dead in 2 years riven by incompatibilities at the OS level & hardware fragmentation. This is the beginning of the land grab where handset manufacturers are able to charge a reasonable price. Once the adoption rate falls into the low teens the differentiating factor will be price. As profits shrivel you’ll end up with the Dell model where low quality trumps everything.
This is a mad fanboi cheerleading ranticle. How pathetic!
All this article says is that Google will lose because they won’t get their advertising in China, but it doesn’t mention anything about how Android is growing much faster than iOS and that’s why many cell phone manufacturers and and network providers go with Android. Also, just because Bing ships with a few phones, it doesn’t mean crap because most Android phones still have some Google Apps on them. Android is in popular demand and is able to keep rising with the release of new features and hardware while iOS is restricted heavily by Steve Jobs, even forcing Apple to change some of their App Store rules. The cold, hard truth is that Android has been, still is, and will be giving Apple a run for it’s money for many years to come. iPhone users need to face the facts; Android is up there fighting hard, and it’s getting ready to knock iOS down.
This pretty much sums Android and iOS:
Android smartphones have power, aesthetics, variety, functionality and jam-packed updates along with an open and innovative platform and an active community. Rooting breaks the limits of Android.
iOS has aesthetics and some power along with somewhat minor updates, an App Store and an active community. Jailbreaking…is like breaking out of Alcatraz; you’re out of jail but you can’t get off the island.
Also, Wozniak still acknowledges Android as being populer and has the possibly of taking over iOS’ market share.