Only several can survive, not many. Every company who has the idea of doing their own OS won't be successful. It's not easy. As Nokia's CEO said it best: "it's now a battle of ecosystems". It's going to turn into much more of a console war in the future, and yet Google are MS aren't really making their own hardware. It's sort of confusing.
It's easy to predict this, but it's impossible to know how it will pan out over the next 5 - 10 years in the mobile-phone/mobile-mini-computer space. If anything, the fact that Apple are taking all the money, even though they won't have all the market-share, perhaps that will cloud the judgement of the other guys, and they'll all, well a few of them will, perhaps take big gambles on their own ecosystems that will run their companies into the ground.
It's not clear how the future will look in this space by any means.
Long time Mac users are used to having friends/family/colleagues who malign the Mac and Apple in general without ever having used any of Apple's product. They all seem to have a friend of a friend of a friend who runs a big IT department who has said that "nobody who is serious about computing uses a Mac".
... and so it goes with iOS.
You are so right. Now they all parrot "I'd never buy an Apple product because it has a walled garden" although when pressed they have no clue what this means.
Only several can survive, not many. Every company who has the idea of doing their own OS won't be successful. It's not easy. As Nokia's CEO said it best: "it's now a battle of ecosystems". It's going to turn into much more of a console war in the future, and yet Google are MS aren't really making their own hardware. It's sort of confusing.
It's easy to predict this, but it's impossible to know how it will pan out over the next 5 - 10 years in the mobile-phone/mobile-mini-computer space. If anything, the fact that Apple are taking all the money, even though they won't have all the market-share, perhaps that will cloud the judgement of the other guys, and they'll all, well a few of them will, perhaps take big gambles on their own ecosystems that will run their companies into the ground.
It's not clear how the future will look in this space by any means.
I agree.
Another interesting angle is that Amazon actually has all the ecosystem, store and infrastructure stuff to be a "second Apple" in this space, but probably not the hardware chops. Some hardware company might try to buy Amazon, or Amazon might start buying up small hardware shops in order to compete.
Palm made every possible mistake they could have and turned themselves into something very much not like a company that is, ?really serious about software should make [its] own hardware.?
Licensing clones (a mistake that Apple briefly made but fortunately pulled back from), splitting into separate software and hardware companies, and so on. The worst possible decisions on practically everything, Palm killed itself by not following that advice.
Yeah, they went from deeply integrated to the exact opposite.
I think it's kind of funny that their last big "save the company product" (the folio), which was universally panned, was in one sense the same idea as the iPad, which is hugely successful. The product niche was spot on, but the product itself was not.
Long time Mac users are used to having friends/family/colleagues who malign the Mac and Apple in general without ever having used any of Apple's product. They all seem to have a friend of a friend of a friend who runs a big IT department who has said that "nobody who is serious about computing uses a Mac".
... and so it goes with iOS.
I had a friend who rejected everything Apple to the point she even refused to go the the Apple Movie Trailers website! She eventually bought into the Apple ecosystem with an iPod touch a couple years ago. Last week she bought a barely-used first generation iPad. Now I have trouble reaching her on the phone because she's glued to her new tablet.
Another friend is in IT. Never had anything nice to say about anything Apple (unless it was about his wife's AAPL stock of course). His wife's a Mac person. He got her an iPad for Christmas, which raised his eyebrows a bit. She got him an iPod touch last month. Now, he's totally hooked. Their transformation genuinely amuses me.
The first reason is glaringly obvious. The Oracle lawsuit is the death knell for Android. It's an airtight case, with legal precedent and the Android source code itself as evidence. Microsoft already lost their battle to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" Java. They paid Sun $20 million back in 2001, and were forced to take their JVM off the market.
Now Google will lose that same battle. They have blatantly copied and attempted to profit from the work the Java team has done. Stealing, then giving away software for free isn't "open" in the sense Rubin was hoping to imply.
And there's another reason. Google has Microsoft-like poor taste and judgement when designing user experiences. (Need I mention the short-lived Google TV as an example?) Google, like Microsoft before it, figured that users will put up with terrible UIs and ugly designs, but for very different reasons. Users put up with Windows' hideous convolutions because they had no choice. Corporate IT put the pee cee on their desk at work and said "Our way or the highway."
Now, Android users put up with the generic-aisle look and feel because, oh well, it's free. But the problem runs far deeper than just a cheesy interface. The whole infrastructure is cheesy. The Android market is full of malware and porn, and Google hasn't provided a real alternative to iTunes yet (and likely never will.) Why? Why does Google seemingly not care about the user experience?
The answer is simple. The only user experience Google actually cares about is the AdMob ads delivered to users. Google's real customers are their advertisers. Google makes 96% of their profits from ads. That's why Android is free. To maximize the number of eyeballs on AdMob ads. And that's why Google has promiscuously done deals with every Tom, Dick, and Harry generic hardware maker, including Motorola. To maximize the number of eyeballs on AdMob ads. Let the manufacturers fight over tiny margins. Let them push each other off the low-price cliff. Let them eat cake.
Motorola bought Azingo, but all they get is an OS development team. They'll be bringing a newborn baby OS to a superb user experience plus deep infrastructure fight. Against Apple, a deeply entrenched, fast-moving, hardened veteran and undisputed champ of the user experience battle. Good luck Moto. You're gonna need it.
But, on the contrary they might make some profit now because they have some sort of control over it's system.But, Motorola has long history of writing incredibly BAD software.
Like what the fandorado will say putting all the eggs in one basket Moto is in the mercy of google, you remove android you loose your top line.
I had a friend who rejected everything Apple to the point she even refused to go the the Apple Movie Trailers website! She eventually bought into the Apple ecosystem with an iPod touch a couple years ago. Last week she bought a barely-used first generation iPad. Now I have trouble reaching her on the phone because she's glued to her new tablet.
Another friend is in IT. Never had anything nice to say about anything Apple (unless it was about his wife's AAPL stock of course). His wife's a Mac person. He got her an iPad for Christmas, which raised his eyebrows a bit. She got him an iPod touch last month. Now, he's totally hooked. Their transformation genuinely amuses me.
Actually I was there myself... I disliked anything related to Mac's and working as a system administrator I got hooked on Linux for long time which I still use to some extend.
Last year I got myself a 13 inch macbook pro and I love it. I take it everywhere I go and I use its unix shell for all the work I did before from my Linux Dell Laptop, plus the great battery life and sturdy casing.
Some of my coworkers give me the eyes but while they drag their power adapter and look for a power extension I am already logged into multiple server and am doing my daily chores
"The report noted that Motorola's efforts to develop an alternative to Android may relate to the uncertainty of Oracle's ongoing patent and copyright claims against Google's mobile operating system, which is modeled upon aspects of Java ME."
FUD...
If thats the case, then why doesn't Google extinguish all the FUD by indemnifying its licence partners?
What Google has done here is amazing. They have basically created this patent time bomb, and told others to pick it up. For FREE! Let their partners handle all the legal risks, while they continue minting money off the Google Ads Android generates.
Are you referring to the Information Week article? Or you just trolling? I didn't see at any point in the article the author mention this?
There were actually two articles by Information weekly that made up this whole inaccurate assumption. And using the term "article" is a stretch because they were really opinion pieces with not a single shred of evidence. You might know that if you actually took the time to check the source of this POS article.
Let's take a look at the evolution of a highly complex product.
In the beginning, the auto industry consisted of independent engine builders, chassis builders and coach builders. Chassis builders would deliver an engine mounted on a chassis to the coach builders who would build a finished body on the chassis and deliver it to the customer.
But as the market grew, the auto companies got bigger, and competition expanded, the auto companies figured out that you build a better car by integrating the design and construction of the engine, chassis and body as tightly as possible. Independent engine, chassis and coach builders disappeared, and not only that, separate chassis and body design and production lines disappeared as well. The end result is today's modern car where one company builds the engine and installs it in its own integrated body and chassis (i.e. unibody).
So Google is an independent chassis-and-engine builder who wants to supply the various coach builders (handset and tablet mfrs). This is a dead model. For any complex product, when the market gets big enough, and the competition vicious enough, integrated design and manufacturing will be the only way to survive. It requires more capital and more technical knowhow but it will always yield a better product.
Jobs figured this out long, long ago, HP about a year ago, and Motorola seems to have just had its come-to-Jesus moment. Google is building a business around Android that is set up for the past. There is just no way, in a complex product like smart phones and tablets, that separately designed OS and device will be able to keep up with an integrated producer firing on all cylinders.
Android will become the smartphone OS of choice for the third world. Basically they will be used by East Asian (mostly Chinese) no-name brands who will sell cheap smart phones to third world consumers. That's already how most PCs for the third world are supplied.
Anyone who asks what about DOS-Windows: I said complex product, large market and competition. DOS-Windows had insignificant competition thanks to the monopoly IBM gifted to Microsoft. But it only postponed the inevitable.
HP is following his advice, as is RIM and now Motorola. Just because MS failed at it multiple times doesn't mean everyone will!
Actually, MS is doing pretty well with the XBox. Although they failed with the Zune, the primary reason was that they were too late, since they wasted time trying the old ways with their PlayForSure initiatives.
Still, the Zune continues to benefit them, because its that experience which they based their WP7 UI around. If MS creates its own device on WP7 (which is what the Nokia deal I think might effectively be), they will be very competitive.
Somebody's got a bad case of Apple envy...and it's Motorola!
Jack In the Box became big by doing one thing, looking at where McDonalds places their stores and placing within the same block. They let McDonalds do all the research. If Motorola is smart they will watch what Apple does and replicate what works, also learn from their past mistakes and not do it. Then figure out, like Apple does, what is the next big thing and beat them to it. There is no way they will win by simply copying what Apple does a year later, or letting someone else control the heart of their OS.
Let the fragmentation begin! What is kind of funny is that for decades Apple was the only major hardware reseller owning its own OS. The conventional wisdom has been better to use Microsoft but build your own box. For a while it was looking like Google had supplanted the MS role. Now all of a sudden its hip to have your own OS. If this trend continues Apple's dominance will only grow IMO.
Well the hardware manufacturers know how that played out. Basically because of the Wintel monopoly, they all became commoditized. Apple is the only company that has substantially differentiated it's computers from other manufacturers and is able to earn a much higher margin on all its computers as a result. The Wintel monopoly worked out great for Microsoft and Intel, but not for everybody else. This time around all the hardware makers are trying to avoid falling into the same trap as before.
Comments
Want to wallow in some more Android fan misery?
HTC locks down Incredible S against custom ROMs too, starts a fight with its best friends
If they weren't such intolerable geeks, I would feel sorry for them. Nah...scratch.
Whatever happened to:
mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make
Android is only "open" if you are HTC or Moto or Samsung.
It's easy to predict this, but it's impossible to know how it will pan out over the next 5 - 10 years in the mobile-phone/mobile-mini-computer space. If anything, the fact that Apple are taking all the money, even though they won't have all the market-share, perhaps that will cloud the judgement of the other guys, and they'll all, well a few of them will, perhaps take big gambles on their own ecosystems that will run their companies into the ground.
It's not clear how the future will look in this space by any means.
Long time Mac users are used to having friends/family/colleagues who malign the Mac and Apple in general without ever having used any of Apple's product. They all seem to have a friend of a friend of a friend who runs a big IT department who has said that "nobody who is serious about computing uses a Mac".
... and so it goes with iOS.
You are so right. Now they all parrot "I'd never buy an Apple product because it has a walled garden" although when pressed they have no clue what this means.
Only several can survive, not many. Every company who has the idea of doing their own OS won't be successful. It's not easy. As Nokia's CEO said it best: "it's now a battle of ecosystems". It's going to turn into much more of a console war in the future, and yet Google are MS aren't really making their own hardware. It's sort of confusing.
It's easy to predict this, but it's impossible to know how it will pan out over the next 5 - 10 years in the mobile-phone/mobile-mini-computer space. If anything, the fact that Apple are taking all the money, even though they won't have all the market-share, perhaps that will cloud the judgement of the other guys, and they'll all, well a few of them will, perhaps take big gambles on their own ecosystems that will run their companies into the ground.
It's not clear how the future will look in this space by any means.
I agree.
Another interesting angle is that Amazon actually has all the ecosystem, store and infrastructure stuff to be a "second Apple" in this space, but probably not the hardware chops. Some hardware company might try to buy Amazon, or Amazon might start buying up small hardware shops in order to compete.
Very confusing indeed, but exciting too.
Palm made every possible mistake they could have and turned themselves into something very much not like a company that is, ?really serious about software should make [its] own hardware.?
Licensing clones (a mistake that Apple briefly made but fortunately pulled back from), splitting into separate software and hardware companies, and so on. The worst possible decisions on practically everything, Palm killed itself by not following that advice.
Yeah, they went from deeply integrated to the exact opposite.
I think it's kind of funny that their last big "save the company product" (the folio), which was universally panned, was in one sense the same idea as the iPad, which is hugely successful. The product niche was spot on, but the product itself was not.
Long time Mac users are used to having friends/family/colleagues who malign the Mac and Apple in general without ever having used any of Apple's product. They all seem to have a friend of a friend of a friend who runs a big IT department who has said that "nobody who is serious about computing uses a Mac".
... and so it goes with iOS.
I had a friend who rejected everything Apple to the point she even refused to go the the Apple Movie Trailers website!
Another friend is in IT. Never had anything nice to say about anything Apple (unless it was about his wife's AAPL stock of course). His wife's a Mac person. He got her an iPad for Christmas, which raised his eyebrows a bit. She got him an iPod touch last month. Now, he's totally hooked. Their transformation genuinely amuses me.
The first reason is glaringly obvious. The Oracle lawsuit is the death knell for Android. It's an airtight case, with legal precedent and the Android source code itself as evidence. Microsoft already lost their battle to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" Java. They paid Sun $20 million back in 2001, and were forced to take their JVM off the market.
Now Google will lose that same battle. They have blatantly copied and attempted to profit from the work the Java team has done. Stealing, then giving away software for free isn't "open" in the sense Rubin was hoping to imply.
And there's another reason. Google has Microsoft-like poor taste and judgement when designing user experiences. (Need I mention the short-lived Google TV as an example?) Google, like Microsoft before it, figured that users will put up with terrible UIs and ugly designs, but for very different reasons. Users put up with Windows' hideous convolutions because they had no choice. Corporate IT put the pee cee on their desk at work and said "Our way or the highway."
Now, Android users put up with the generic-aisle look and feel because, oh well, it's free. But the problem runs far deeper than just a cheesy interface. The whole infrastructure is cheesy. The Android market is full of malware and porn, and Google hasn't provided a real alternative to iTunes yet (and likely never will.) Why? Why does Google seemingly not care about the user experience?
The answer is simple. The only user experience Google actually cares about is the AdMob ads delivered to users. Google's real customers are their advertisers. Google makes 96% of their profits from ads. That's why Android is free. To maximize the number of eyeballs on AdMob ads. And that's why Google has promiscuously done deals with every Tom, Dick, and Harry generic hardware maker, including Motorola. To maximize the number of eyeballs on AdMob ads. Let the manufacturers fight over tiny margins. Let them push each other off the low-price cliff. Let them eat cake.
Motorola bought Azingo, but all they get is an OS development team. They'll be bringing a newborn baby OS to a superb user experience plus deep infrastructure fight. Against Apple, a deeply entrenched, fast-moving, hardened veteran and undisputed champ of the user experience battle. Good luck Moto. You're gonna need it.
But, on the contrary they might make some profit now because they have some sort of control over it's system.But, Motorola has long history of writing incredibly BAD software.
Like what the fandorado will say putting all the eggs in one basket Moto is in the mercy of google, you remove android you loose your top line.
I had a friend who rejected everything Apple to the point she even refused to go the the Apple Movie Trailers website!
Another friend is in IT. Never had anything nice to say about anything Apple (unless it was about his wife's AAPL stock of course). His wife's a Mac person. He got her an iPad for Christmas, which raised his eyebrows a bit. She got him an iPod touch last month. Now, he's totally hooked. Their transformation genuinely amuses me.
Actually I was there myself... I disliked anything related to Mac's and working as a system administrator I got hooked on Linux for long time which I still use to some extend.
Last year I got myself a 13 inch macbook pro and I love it. I take it everywhere I go and I use its unix shell for all the work I did before from my Linux Dell Laptop, plus the great battery life and sturdy casing.
Some of my coworkers give me the eyes but while they drag their power adapter and look for a power extension I am already logged into multiple server and am doing my daily chores
...... I have thought about buying him an iPad and saying, "try this, write an honest commentary on it and you can keep it," .....[I]'.
At the risk of sounding like a donkey ..... pick me, pick me, pick me!
"The report noted that Motorola's efforts to develop an alternative to Android may relate to the uncertainty of Oracle's ongoing patent and copyright claims against Google's mobile operating system, which is modeled upon aspects of Java ME."
FUD...
If thats the case, then why doesn't Google extinguish all the FUD by indemnifying its licence partners?
What Google has done here is amazing. They have basically created this patent time bomb, and told others to pick it up. For FREE! Let their partners handle all the legal risks, while they continue minting money off the Google Ads Android generates.
I love how MOT, HTC, etc. simply fell for it.
They must have some low hiring standards.
They couldn't even do a decent job of porting Honeycomb onto the Xoom, what's the chances that they'll be able to write a decent OS themselves...LOL
Are you referring to the Information Week article? Or you just trolling? I didn't see at any point in the article the author mention this?
There were actually two articles by Information weekly that made up this whole inaccurate assumption. And using the term "article" is a stretch because they were really opinion pieces with not a single shred of evidence. You might know that if you actually took the time to check the source of this POS article.
In the beginning, the auto industry consisted of independent engine builders, chassis builders and coach builders. Chassis builders would deliver an engine mounted on a chassis to the coach builders who would build a finished body on the chassis and deliver it to the customer.
But as the market grew, the auto companies got bigger, and competition expanded, the auto companies figured out that you build a better car by integrating the design and construction of the engine, chassis and body as tightly as possible. Independent engine, chassis and coach builders disappeared, and not only that, separate chassis and body design and production lines disappeared as well. The end result is today's modern car where one company builds the engine and installs it in its own integrated body and chassis (i.e. unibody).
So Google is an independent chassis-and-engine builder who wants to supply the various coach builders (handset and tablet mfrs). This is a dead model. For any complex product, when the market gets big enough, and the competition vicious enough, integrated design and manufacturing will be the only way to survive. It requires more capital and more technical knowhow but it will always yield a better product.
Jobs figured this out long, long ago, HP about a year ago, and Motorola seems to have just had its come-to-Jesus moment. Google is building a business around Android that is set up for the past. There is just no way, in a complex product like smart phones and tablets, that separately designed OS and device will be able to keep up with an integrated producer firing on all cylinders.
Android will become the smartphone OS of choice for the third world. Basically they will be used by East Asian (mostly Chinese) no-name brands who will sell cheap smart phones to third world consumers. That's already how most PCs for the third world are supplied.
Anyone who asks what about DOS-Windows: I said complex product, large market and competition. DOS-Windows had insignificant competition thanks to the monopoly IBM gifted to Microsoft. But it only postponed the inevitable.
I use its unix shell for all the work I did before from my Linux Dell Laptop
Get DTerm from the Mac App Store. Your life will be transformed!
Let their partners handle all the legal risks, while they continue minting money off the Google Ads Android generates.
I love how MOT, HTC, etc. simply fell for it.
Necessity may have mothered invention, but desperation is the baby momma that birthed shortsightedness.
HP is following his advice, as is RIM and now Motorola. Just because MS failed at it multiple times doesn't mean everyone will!
Best
Get DTerm from the Mac App Store. Your life will be transformed!
Noted.
Thanks!
HP is following his advice, as is RIM and now Motorola. Just because MS failed at it multiple times doesn't mean everyone will!
Actually, MS is doing pretty well with the XBox. Although they failed with the Zune, the primary reason was that they were too late, since they wasted time trying the old ways with their PlayForSure initiatives.
Still, the Zune continues to benefit them, because its that experience which they based their WP7 UI around. If MS creates its own device on WP7 (which is what the Nokia deal I think might effectively be), they will be very competitive.
Somebody's got a bad case of Apple envy...and it's Motorola!
Jack In the Box became big by doing one thing, looking at where McDonalds places their stores and placing within the same block. They let McDonalds do all the research. If Motorola is smart they will watch what Apple does and replicate what works, also learn from their past mistakes and not do it. Then figure out, like Apple does, what is the next big thing and beat them to it. There is no way they will win by simply copying what Apple does a year later, or letting someone else control the heart of their OS.
Let the fragmentation begin! What is kind of funny is that for decades Apple was the only major hardware reseller owning its own OS. The conventional wisdom has been better to use Microsoft but build your own box. For a while it was looking like Google had supplanted the MS role. Now all of a sudden its hip to have your own OS. If this trend continues Apple's dominance will only grow IMO.
Well the hardware manufacturers know how that played out. Basically because of the Wintel monopoly, they all became commoditized. Apple is the only company that has substantially differentiated it's computers from other manufacturers and is able to earn a much higher margin on all its computers as a result. The Wintel monopoly worked out great for Microsoft and Intel, but not for everybody else. This time around all the hardware makers are trying to avoid falling into the same trap as before.