Google wants an equal chance to get into your mobile phone

Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others have collaborated on the development of Android, which is open source software for mobile devices, including an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications.

As reported in various newspapers and in this blog, the Google Phone is not a device introduced by Google, but a software stack for mobile phones.

The companies have teamed under an alliance called the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders.

The key objective of Android is summed in this paragraph on the web site of the alliance: “Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services.”

Google’s bid to proliferate a standard platform, even an open-source platform, will likely be resisted by many mobile phone vendors including Nokia. An open source platform would deprive Nokia of its differentiation. Open source tends to drive commoditization, because every new software feature is available to anyone else to include in their phones.

In its bid to expand its presence beyond the desktop, Google has been pushing for mobile phone vendors and service providers to open up their platforms and services to third-party applications. That would enable users to download Google applications and services on to their phones without having to worry about software compatibility issues, or whether their network operator supports the application.

Currently Google, as also other application and services vendors have to negotiate with mobile phone vendors and network operators to support their applications or services. In such a deal Google would probably have to share its key revenue stream – advertising – with service providers.

The adoption of an open platform would help Google as also users who would have the freedom to choose applications for their device. These days if you buy a phone from Nokia Corp. or Sony Ericsson, or any other vendor, before you download an application, you have to verify that the software is compatible with and supported by your specific mobile phone model. You may also have to check with mobile phone service providers to find out if they support the application.

Google’s move to promote a standard platform is however likely to be resisted by mobile phone makers and network operators, as it will be seen by many as a move by Google to extend its dominance to beyond the desktop, and beyond search. The question foremost on vendors’ minds will be: what is Google doing with operating system and middleware for the mobile phone ? Isn’t that the same thing that Microsoft has been trying with its own software ?

As an user, I too would be a little worried, if my favorite search provider, news aggregator, online productivity applications provider, and blog hosting provider were to also try to get into operating system software. Google is beyond doubt the key player in the Open Handset Alliance. To assuage the doubts of handset vendors and those of users, the company has to make a clear statement of its own objectives.

Apart from winning over big handset vendors like Nokia, Google and Open Handset Alliance will also have to win over large service providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless. These two companies together control over 50 percent of the US market, and have long been used to deciding what goes into phones on their network. Control has provided them rich content and services revenue streams. They may not take too kindly to having Google and the Open Handset Alliance telling them what to do on their networks.

Related articles:

A Google phone. So why the fuss ?

In emerging markets, pirated Windows wins over Linux

Mandriva’s CEO François Bancilhon is livid that the Nigerian government has decided to replace Mandriva Linux with Windows from Microsoft Corp. on Classmate PCs. See his open letter to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, where he blames the Redmond, Washington software giant for queering the pitch for Mandriva.

Emerging markets, because they are poor and are just beginning to adopt computers, are seen by many Linux advocates as a natural market for open source software. After all it gives developing countries cheaper software, and yes the freedom to play around with the source code.

However neither the governments nor the people in emerging markets can afford to be dogmatic on these issues. If Microsoft offers to donate software to a country, and promises to train teachers on Microsoft’s technologies, as they did in India, who are the governments to argue. Their priority is to take computing to as many people as possible.

Taking a position on the open source versus proprietary debate is a luxury emerging markets cannot afford.

For students, knowledge of Microsoft products is considered important as familiarity with Office and Windows is required for most clerical jobs. Most corporations still use Windows and related applications on the desktop. Until that changes dramatically, students too are likely to be keen on using and being trained on Microsoft’s products rather than on open-source technologies.

Governments in emerging markets cannot afford to interfere with this decision by forcing students to work on Linux and open source.

In many emerging markets, Linux is in fact being pushed by PC hardware vendors, as it helps them keep their prices low. In private, some of these vendors will tell you that they are offering Linux just because they have to be seen to be offering an operating system on their computers. Except for some die-hard Linux users, most of the others remove Linux from the hardware, and load a cheap, pirated version of Windows. The vendors’ resellers often oblige by doing it for the user before he takes delivery of the computer.

Why do folks use the pirated Windows instead of the legal Linux ? Because everyone else does it. This illustrates how deeply Windows is entrenched in the users’ psyche in emerging markets. It also illustrates the ecosystem of mentoring and sharing that has over the years got built in emerging countries around Windows. If Windows doesn’t work too well on your computer, go across to a friend or a dealer who will help you find your way out. If you need some other software to run on your computer, the reseller will give you a CD-ROM with a pirated version of the software.

That kind of ecosystem is as yet not available for Linux and other open source software. Open source in emerging markets is a preserve of the geeks. Some of them are with open source primarily because they think it is chic to be seen to support open source.

Purchase decisions in emerging markets are based on purely utilitarian considerations rather than ideology. Users violate copyright laws – and I don’t think they are doing that to spite Bill Gates. They are doing it because it is convenient, and Linux does not as yet qualify as a convenient choice.

Related articles:

Throwing computers at the digital divide won’t help
A little more tolerance Mr. Stallman !

A little more tolerance Mr. Stallman !

For those of us who in some way or the other were influenced by the counter-culture, folks like Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation are a nostalgic reminder of what the counter-culture stood for – freedom, choice, be yourself.

Stallman does not fit or try to fit into a squeaky corporate persona. By his very casual dressing, often bordering on the unkempt, and his insistence on software being free (as in freedom to access, modify, and redistribute source code, and not just free as in “free beer”), Stallman is the best example of the counter-culture in software development.

Which is all nice, and interesting. But problems begin when folks like Stallman and his followers take the moral high ground, and demonize everyone else, including the folks in the open-source camp. “If you don't want to lose your freedom, you had better not follow (Linus Torvalds),” Stallman said in an interview published in Computerworld

Freedom in any society, including an open society is continuously fought for, and earned through compromises and adjustments with the freedom of other people, including those who would like to develop proprietary software. You may want to call the folks in the proprietary camp profiteers, misguided, but not by a long stretch unethical. This intolerance of other views has perhaps made Stallman and the FSF lose ground to more popular open-source.

You may disagree with the direction the open-source movement is taking. These days one hears from the open-source community less about freedom, and more about how open-source development is the most efficient, economical, and flexible model for software development, as it taps into the innovation of a large number of software developers. The justification for open-source is increasingly becoming one of economic efficiency than of freedom.

There are a lot of factors that have influenced this change – a key one being the adoption of open source by the corporate sector. If Eric S. Raymond said many years ago that “every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch”, today a lot of open-source software development is directed by a corporate agenda, a corporate itch. On the flip side, there are far more developers on company roles doing open-source development, which has increased the sheer volume of open source software available.

There are also a lot of companies that swear entirely by open source, while some others put into open source only some parts of their software, where they can benefit from the efficiencies of the model.

Different interests have taken a different view of open-source, and not a lot of them are purists in the Stallman mode. I admire Stallman’s concern about freedom, but in all spheres of society freedom comes through a “give-and-take”. I admire Stallman for standing his ground, but I can’t agree with him demonizing others for not standing on the ground he chooses. That borders on the fascist, and is anathema to any freedom.