Like Daryl Hannah in “Blade Runner,” Google Inc. last week showcased an attention-grabbing Android. But while the Internet giant garnered headlines and wowed fanboys with its latest move in wireless, some developers reacted with a big yawn.
Google ended weeks of speculation about its mobile plans, unveiling an alliance of industry heavyweights centered on a new, open source mobile software platform. The company joined Qualcomm Inc., Motorola Inc. and other members of the new Open Handset Alliance (OHA) to introduce Android, a Linux-based software stack that consists of an operating system, middleware, a user interface and applications.
The 34-member group said it will offer a software development kit (SDK) this week, allowing developers to freely access the source code and tweak it for their own purposes. The idea, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is to give application creators a new foundation upon which they can easily and cheaply build their wares.
“If you look at it, the key challenges in mobile have been the user interface. . Mobile developers face high costs and distribution issues,” Schmidt said. “No longer, if you are using Android as your platform, will you have to shoehorn, if you will, your application” onto a mobile phone.
Open development
Developers have long complained of the pitfalls of creating applications for mobile, where a host of variables-including different operating systems, feature-phone platforms, networks and device models-has given rise to a nightmarish development environment. Such issues have helped to fuel interest in Mobile Linux in the last couple of years. Motorola has seen traction with its Linux-based Ming phones in China, and companies such as Trolltech and OpenMoko have gained traction among developers by offering Linux-enabled mobile phones that serve as little testing grounds for mobile applications.
The new alliance is a formidable group: In addition to Google, Motorola and Qualcomm, the consortium includes Deutsche Telekom AG, HTC Corp., Sprint Nextel Corp., eBay Inc. and more than two dozen others. That number is sure to swell before Android-enabled handsets come to market in the second half of next year.
All that firepower is sure to add to Mobile Linux’s increasing momentum. ABI Research earlier this year predicted the platform will be the fastest-growing smartphone OS over the next five years, with Linux-enabled handsets accounting for 31% of all smartphones by 2012.
More confusion
But whether Android is good news for developers is debatable. While Android is designed as yet another attempt to create a “Write once, run anywhere” platform-the term was coined by Sun Microsystems Inc. for its Java offering-it will serve only as one more platform developers must write to in the short-term. And Google is licensing the software stack under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing any would-be developer to access the code, tweak it as he sees fit, and make the final product proprietary if he chooses.
“It does fragment the market for developers,” said Benoit Schillings, CTO of Trolltech. The Norwegian developer last year brought to market its Greenphone, Linux-based phone solely targeted at developers looking to build mobile applications. Trolltech moved more than 1,000 of the $700 devices before depleting its inventory and has no plans to offer the phones again, saying it will support new open source projects.
“It certainly creates some questions about all the other initiatives,” Schillings said of Android. “People are going to be scratching their heads about where they need to put their money.”
Products, apps key
Movial, a Finnish developer of Linux-based wares, is monitoring the OHA. Movial CEO Jari Ala-Ruona said Google and its partners could change the landscape if they bring compelling devices and applications to market next year.
“Hopefully, with the horsepower Google has, the first phones they will bring to market . could turn the tide very quickly,” said Ala-Ruona. “But one thing that we’re seeing (with open source technology) is that everybody wants to control a piece of it. It’s open source, but maybe somebody wants to control the user interface, another company wants to control Internet services. It’s very difficult to keep up with.”
