Android May Finally Be Ready For Prime Time

Once upon a time, just about everyone owned a Motorola RAZR. In fact when RAZRs were popular, Motorola and their industrial design were the player to beat in the cell phone industry. A lot has changed since then: the standard cell phone market has declined significantly, smart phones instead have become ubiquitous, and a company by the name of Apple created a phone...I think I've seen some things about it.

This is not to say room doesn't still exist for the once mighty Motorola, however. As I wrote a few weeks ago, Apple's proclivity to claim openness but remain closed has allowed the king of free, Google to slip in the door by creating their own mobile computing platform...Android. Like the iPhone when in its infancy, Android was plagued with lukewarm receptions but buoyed by the hope of what might be. After all, a lower cost open source mobile platform with a supportive developer base could be just what device makers like Motorola need to compete with leaders Microsoft and Apple....right? Fortunately for Google and its partners, it looks as though the platform is finally catching up to the hype. A major development is the release of Android 2.0, which boasts a number of impressive features including full native Microsoft Exchange support, Facebook integration for contact management, and better performance...generally placing Android on par with the iPhone OS.

What does this have to do with Motorola? You might have had your Sunday afternoon television viewing interrupted with an odd commercial...one that started like an Apple ad, but certainly didn't end like one. Motorola is releasing a new device based on Google's Android OS called Droid, and this commercial is the start of Verizon and Motorola's new marketing campaign targeted squarely at Apple and the iPhone. What's more, it sounds as though Motorola's new phone may be the beginning of a resurgence for the company. "The most impressive phone we've used since the iPhone" sums it up nicely. Combine that with the fact that this device carries a keyboard and Verizon's more reliable network (something iPhone users crave) and you may have a winner. If this is true, it means that the software and hardware finally exists in concert to make Android a real and robust mobile computing platform...and it may be time to begin thinking of the smart phone market as a three horse race.

Do Google and Apple Need Each Other?

To say that the once fruitful relationship between the jewels of Cupertino and Mountain View has become strained is an understatement. First, it was the unveiling of Google's new mobile computing platform, Android, that ruffled Apple's feathers. Next, it was the announcement that Google would soon be entering another of Apple's markets with the development of their Chrome OS. This led to the ouster of Google's CEO from Apple's board, and a subsequent investigation by the FTC for "remaining interlocking directorates". As if that wasn't enough, there was then the "small" issue of Google Voice's entrance (and immediate exit) from Apple's App Store, leading to a full FCC investigation and very public "he said, she said" between AT&T, Google, and Apple. The past week has shown that the two companies are quite obviously distancing themselves from one another, with Apple acquiring Google Maps competitor Placebase, and today's announcement of Google's partnership with AT&T competitor Verizon to further drive penetration of its Android platform.

Strategic partnerships between two large entities are often built on shaky ground to begin with, in particular when those companies are in the same industry. It doesn't help that both Google and Apple are growing at alarming rates, and I suppose one might argue that some infringement upon each other's territory might have been unavoidable. It begs the question though, does either company benefit (or at least lose less) from the bickering and potential loss of the partnership? Apple once again seems destined to fight the battle of platform dependancy against platform agnosticism, and much like it was when Apple and Microsoft battled in the early days of personal computing I think Google may have the upper hand. They are not tied to a specifc business model, a specific audience, or a specific hardware/software platform in most instances. Google has the ability to plug their solutions into a extraordinary amount of places, allowing them to weather the loss of a partnership like they have with Apple...even if that partnership provides them with hooks into arguably the most popular mobile device available. Apple, on the other hand relies more heavily on quality rather than quantity. They depend upon the control of the entire stack of a product to succeed, and I fear will have a much harder time finding pieces to fill in the holes that Google leaves open in their product base. Regardless of its history, Apple seems destined to fall into the same interoperability trap set by Microsoft many years ago. It's ironic that despite their corporate motto, it may be Google that plays the villan this time.