Google Phone

The FCC isn’t the only organisation sitting on a newly-available chunk of spectrum; UK media regulator Ofcom is in a similar situation, with the ongoing switch-over from analogue to digital TV - set to be completed by 2012 - freeing up enough frequency space for a “nationwide mobile network”.  Ofcom have confirmed that they’re watching the US auction process closely, perhaps hoping that, should it be the success the FCC are expecting, they will have a similar experience when they set out their stall come 2009.

“We have a lot of interest in innovation and talk to the FCC regularly … We would be interested to discover if Google have an interest in the UK.  They are bidding in the US and we are extremely interested [in that]” Ed Richards, CEO, Ofcom

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It might just be Seasonal Affective Disorder, but paranoia and dark soothsaying seem to be the moods of the moment with analysts and industry professionals muttering worried concerns about Google’s long-term plans and the state of the open-source market.  While the original Android announcement - of a mobile platform built on open-source foundations that would promote flexibility and perhaps even make good on the “write once, run anywhere” mantra developers have long been promised - prompted excitement, the recent release of LiPS’ open-specifications has reminded everyone of the flipside of flexibility.  Namely, that everybody involved needs to sign up to the same standards and cooperate. 

“It’s unlikely that Android would happen to comply with LiPS 1.0 … At the end of the day, confused customers don’t buy — and confused developers don’t write apps. Then you have a fragmented ecosystem” Bill Hughes, analyst, In-Stat

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One platform, a predicted mass of devices built on it; that’s the future of Android as Google and the Open Handset Alliance would have us believe.  Yet Nikita Ivanov envisages another application, turning the collective deployment of handsets running the open-source platform into an interconnected grid capable of worldwide peer-to-peer processing.  Ivanov works as part of the GridGain project, developing a free, open-source Java-based grid computing technology that can offset CPU-heavy tasks between multiple workstations (or cellphones) operating concurrently, and they’re now looking at how they can leverage Android’s unified APIs to facilitate an ad-hoc swarm grid between handsets.

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Verizon Wireless may be making all the right noises to get into the open-access club, but what exactly do they need to do in order to back up all those promises?  Michael Megalli is certainly not willing to let the carrier off the hook; in a three step plan, he’s laid out the vital evolution that must take place if their “new” business model is to be taken seriously.

“Unlike the days of the network evening news, today’s market is only what it says it is. Part of being open is being willing to give over control. This is as true for marketing as it is for anything else. Give people as much (or as little) choice as they want and let them create their own value props” Michael Megalli, MediaPost

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Enterprise applications and data-loaded maps might be useful, but the childlike parts of us would probably admit that we’re also curious about what games will be available for Android.  Now, the platform won’t be societally-acceptable until Doom has been ported to it, but until then how about Japan-based developer Original Game Soft’s Dodge Balls.

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Android has the traditional carriers unnerved at the prospect of a rapidly evolving business model - unnerved enough for historically closed Verizon Wireless to let down the CDMA drawbridge, even - with open-source software promising to flood the market with low-cost, highly adapted cellular devices and advertising revenue supplanting monthly contracts and expensive add-ons.  Yet some believe this upheaval is merely the beginning; Linux software provider Wind River Systems dispatched their chief marketing officer, John Bruggeman, to talk to ZDNet’s Dana Gardner about not only the advancing role of geo-specific search and advertising, but the future of Android as a platform for mobile devices and the successful software that’s to run on it.

“You’ve got your phone. And, I know physically where that [phone’s] IP address is. You are around the corner from Starbucks. Now, is Starbucks going to be willing to pay a premium to get you to drive or walk around the corner? Or, I know you’re sitting in the airport terminal. All the possibilities become very powerful concepts” John Bruggerman, Wind River Systems

With Google already experimenting with mobile adverts, and Microsoft this week launching both banner and text adverts on their MSN Mobile portal, it seems a safe bet that the business model is set to evolve.  Yet as eWeek’s Clint Boulton points out, consumers already consider banners passé and are fearful that the adverts will “clutter the tiny screens” of their devices.  The key difference will be targeting promotional content so that it is both personally and situationally specific enough to be of interest (rather than frustration) to the user, and cost effective to the company funding the advert who is, in effect, subsidising the user’s connection.

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Perhaps we’re impatient but it seems to have taken an unduly long period for the first working Android prototypes to show up.  Thankfully Willcom - largest operator of Japan’s PHS network - have developed a reference board in order to demo an implementation of the OS platform; in its current state, however, it’s not exactly built for a pocket.  Based around a Freescale ARM CPU running at 532MHz and a GSM SIM, the test board can access all of Android’s included functionality (from banalities such as voice calls through to the advanced mobile mapping) as well as handle multitasking

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Overshadowed by Google’s partner-packed Android launch, LiPS (the Linux Phone Standards Forum) has nonetheless pushed ahead with phase two of their mobile Linux specification, released to developers this week.  Differentiating themselves from the work of the Open Handset Alliance by defining their project as broad standards for any Linux-based cellphone, as opposed to Android’s specific implementation, the guidelines set out a number of key telephony, UI, messaging and presence functions that would allow developers to produce applications compatible with any smartphone that adhered to the LiPS criteria.

“The basic notion of what OHA and Android put forth is an implementation of a phone stack that is Java-based and a given implementation.  If that implementation is broadly accepted and devices are built on it, it could constitute a de facto standard. Our approach is a traditional one of standardization” Bill Weinberg, General Manager, LiPS

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Nokia has hit back at Google’s Android platform, with CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo dismissing the Open Handset Alliance’s OS launch with the suggestion that the Finnish company themselves have already trodden much of the software ground Google and partners are currently bringing attention to: “conceptually, we could have made that announcement a long time ago.”  In fact, with their announcement of the Ovi internet-services project - that has recently clinched the support of Vodafone, already a vocal critic of Android - that will combine their music and mapping services, as well as hints of geo-targeted advertising, their position as chief rival to the Google OS seems increasingly cemented.

“Mobile phones have two qualities that PCs don’t have: they’re always with you, and they tell other people where you are” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia

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HTC’s Peter Chou has confirmed today that the company is developing a whole new range of Android-powered handsets that, despite having a number of successful designs already in their portfolio, will be distinct from the current Windows Mobile powered range.  In an interview with Engadget, the company CEO discussed HTC’s move from producing OEM handsets for carriers to promoting their own brand, and how their development of software interfaces which, so far, have run on top of WM6 has prepared them for the opportunity to build unique devices based on Android.

“HTC is trying to differentiate ourselves in terms of user experience. Not just features or functions or tags, just really trying to design the product from the user’s perspective, because we care about the user. So our vision is that we want people to enjoy that mobility, which comes from user-focused design. Touch Flo is one such technology, and we are very proud of. And we are actually trying to innovate from the software user experience, that point of view. Definitely, the Android platform has a lot more flexibility to do more in this area” Peter Chou, CEO, HTC

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