and here comes Google!

I admit it. I’d been wishin’ and hopin’ and prayin’ that Google would launch some new phone that would change the landscape of mobile telephony. Instead, with the Open Handset Alliance, it seems as though we got a vision and a committee.

Of course, I’m being a bit harsh here. What this alliance is trying to do is really important. Philosophically, they’re saying that the current paradigm is Dysfunctional with a capital D. Without a platform and standards, developers cannot efficiently build software that users want. I couldn’t agree more. It’s simply depressing to think of what creative developments could emerge if only there weren’t so many barriers to interaction. Yet, I’m having a hard time getting my head around why a Google OS is the answer.

There are no standard operating systems in the world of mobile. Microsoft has their mobile OS. Then there’s Palm. And lots of companies build their own OSes with varying options for trying to build software for them: Nokia, Motorola, iPhone, Danger, etc. Some require handset signoff of apps and most require carrier signoff. Even more problematically, it’s just downright ugly to write software for most of these phones. Google wants to change that. And it looks like for some phones, it will. But not all carriers are in. And not all handset makers are in.

So will this actually bridge anything, or will it only introduce another segmentation into the market that makes it more difficult for users to interact with one another?

Right now, honestly, I can’t read between the soft and fuzzy marketing lines to make heads or tails of where things are going. But the Android Challenge will certainly make a few geeks happy.

1 comment November 13th, 2007