Much has been said about the Google Phone since it was first leaked (or was it?!) that the folks in Mountain View, CA were going to be entering the mobile phone marketplace. Some saw this move as a way for Google to take on the resurgent tech starlet, also known as Apple, in a segment of the market that is forecasted to be a huge boon for advertising revenues in coming years. With Apple’s apparent success with the iPhone, it would seem that Google was just trying to make sure that Steve Jobs and his gang didn’t have all the fun out there in handheld land.
Though others simply saw this rumored new phone as a way for Google to further expand the reach of their organization by giving end users a way to easily interact with all of the awesome (And they are awesome people. If you haven’t tried them yet, get onboard with Google Apps, now!) applications that Google has put together in the last few years…and doing this without paying any cellular provider outrageous prices or signing up your first born to any ridiculous service contracts (*ahem* Apple).
Many whispered that Google would possibly even offer free cellular minutes by using an ad-based revenue model on the phone…and would in turn kill all of the cell phone providers as we know them today. I was pulling for the latter, but I digress…
In truth, what turned up being the case was that Google was not working on a physical device, but rather an open source mobile operating system that is being released alongside of a full SDK (software development kit) for immediate implementation on any and all capable handheld devices.
This new operating system is codenamed Andriod and its SDK can be previewed
at this link. Android takes advantage of many newer technologies such as the latest high speed 3G networks, seamless implementation with Google Applications such as their office products and the uber-popular Google Maps, touch screen capabilities and more in an effort to provide developers with an easy to develop upon platform that is on the cutting edge of what is available to any and all handheld device manufacturers at this time. Regardless of who you are, you will soon be able to grab this SDK and begin pumping out your own applications to share with the world.
For developers, this is like hearing that Willy Wonka is sending out an unlimited amount of golden tickets (cue ‘I got a golden ticket’ song) for all the world to have a chance at entering that magical place only so very few are able to reach in a lifetime. All you have to do is go down to your local store where the clerk will give you chocolate bars for free in hopes one will have a golden ticket with your name on it.
So what does all of this mean to you and I? Well, not much right away. Yet given time and the right level of support and implementation of this OS, what Android could mean to the mobile device industry is staggering. Finally we can have an open source platform that is properly supported (and no, Palm was never properly supported…ever) from both a community of enthusiast developers much like the FireFox browser is. But at the same time, this platform will have the support of over 30 mobile and technology companies known as the
Open Handset Alliance, not to mention one of the largest companies in the world behind it…Google.
In the long term, what we could be seeing here is [start conjecture] Google’s second attempt at dethroning Microsoft from one of their few remaining platform perches…the first shot across the bow of the boys in Redmond, WA was when Google released Google Apps which is essentially a free, online version of Microsoft’s two biggest Office applications, Excel and Word. Bill Gates revealed in a keynote speech years ago that Microsoft viewed the mobile platform as their biggest area of intrigue, second to only their operating system and game console businesses, and that their efforts at grabbing the mobile OS market were extremely important to the future organizational outputs and securities of their company.
Could this be Google’s butting in of the popcorn line at the new world movie theatre where Microsoft is dozing away in the back row, hoping that the world simply learns to live with that horrendous piece of software they pass for a mobile platform like we all did with Windows a decade ago? Or could Google simply be looking for a way to spend all that money they’re sitting on right now?
At the end of the day, only Google knows what Google is doing…but one this is for sure by reading this article and the attached sources (both video and print), and it is that Google is entering into a new market in typical Google style: Not giving a hoot about making money initially, but rather hoping to improve the end-user experience while harnessing the immense power of the global coding community. [/end conjecture]
To prove their enthusiasm for this new platform, and just how much they appreciate and care about developers, Google is pledging $10 million dollars to be given away to independent programmers as a way to fuel innovation and motivation in the ranks of code writers world-wide. I don’t know about you, but 10 million sheckles is enough to get me brushed up on my l33t coding skillz set!
"Bounty hunters. We don't need their scum!" -Admiral Firmus Piett
