The Meaning of Droid
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The Meaning of Droid
The smartphone market is about to be shaken up.
Posted Monday, November 2, 2009 - 11:20am
Literally, Droid is the new Motorola (MOT) phone sold by Verizon (VZ) and running Google’s latest Android 2.0 release. The early reviews are good and, cleverly, Google (GOOG) issued a new turn-by-turn navigation application for the platform, also well-received, complete with voice control and street-view pictures. The Droid starts selling later this week, on Nov. 6. I’ll get one ASAP and report.
Earlier Android-powered phones weren’t so great. I bought a T-Mobile G1 exactly one year ago and wasn’t overwhelmed. I then called it “just a first effort” and wrote: “It’s only a question of time before most phone makers and cellular carriers offer an Android model, 12 months or less. Motorola, for example, is building a “social networking” Android phone. This is precisely the beauty of the Android Open Source. It lets phone makers and carriers try different implementations, specialized models, vertical applications.”
One year later, we have a new situation, a real contender for the lead position in the exploding smartphone market. How will Android affect the rest of the industry: Motorola, Garmin, TomTom, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, and, of course, the iPhone’s meteoric rise?
For Apple (AAPL), the short answer is: The iPhone will continue to apply the Macintosh method—that is, controlling all or most of the user’s experience—with similar results: smaller market share, disproportionally larger profits than the separate hardware-software crowd. More on this later.
Let’s start with a tip of the hat to Motorola. Last year, I questioned Motorola’s strategy and even its survival. Their “mobile devices” business was going to be spun off—the smell, perhaps, from the more dignified “institutional” business, selling communications gear to government and enterprise customers. Fortunately, the new co-CEO for the mobile devices business, Sanjay Jha, came in, saw the ongoing wreckage, and dumped everything, starting with the Windows Mobile anchor. Then, listening to his techies’ advice, Jha bet on Google’s Android. The result is the Droid smartphone, which makes Motorola a strong contender again.
The same can’t said for makers of PNDs (Portable Navigation Devices), such as Garmin and TomTom. The latter company tried to dodge the bullet by announcing an iPhone application and a car kit. But the app costs $99.99 and the car kit goes for $119.95 at the online Apple Store, iPhone app not included. Not going to fool too many buyers, especially if, as rumored, the Google application becomes available on the iPhone. (You can get a TomTom One for $79.99 on Amazon.)
Comments
Android has already won by picking Java
'It is significantly harder to write applications for the BlackBerry, since it uses Java and, as a result, the applications have less “expressive powers” than with other operating systems.'If that were a legitimate point, then it wouldn't make any sense, because Android is also using Java, so one would expect Android to be at the same disadvantage. And yet you do not hear criticism on that front.But it isn't a legitimate point, because Java applications are *easier* to write than programs in other languages. I know because I tried writing an iPhone app and gave up when I discovered how much easier it would be on Android.iPhone forces you to use Objective-C, an uncommon language with strange conventions, through the Apple XCode IDE, which is not used widely outside of Mac development. Google has chosen Java, which is widely-used and for which optimized embedded processors are available. Android dev happens through Eclipse, an industry standard. Google has already committed the coup, and it was at this level -- the level at which more and better apps can be created more quickly and easily. I know because I've tried to develop for both, and I now own an Android phone.
Gassee makes an extremely important point
one that I wish business schools would accept and embrace:
Market share and profits aren’t the same—ask BMW and General Motors.
Most companies design to market share, but not Apple. They are happy with 9% or 10% of the market for PCs (maybe they won't be for long, but I doubt they ever expect to have a 30% share), as long as they are profitable. The rest of the industry, along with most other industries, fall for the BS thinking (that's Business School) that you can only be profitable in a mature market when you have a dominant share. That's ridiculous, and Apple has proven it.
WinMo will only survive if MS gives it away. Every WinMo device has a $10 or so cost disadvantage, and no offsetting marketing advantage (i.e., nobody will wait on line to buy a winmo phone). RIM will be done in 5-7 years, as their data-centric features will be available in the cheapest of phones, ones with usable browsers and larger displays. Palm's only hope is that Nokia (or maybe Sony-Ericcson) buys them. Motorola will do well as long as they stick with Android, which will be the windows of the mobile device world. except like the linux kernel it is based on, free. Nokia will adapt, one way or the other. They sell hardware, good hardware, and only need to combine it with a current OS. Apple will be content with 5% of the world-wide mobile market, as all phones become smart.