The Business Standard has an interesting article, The call hasn`t ended, which details some of the challenges for Google in pushing the Android platform. Confusingly, the author makes some comparisons to Microsoft with Google acquiring the Android (Andy Rubin) just as MSFT had acquired Groove (Ray Ozzie). While the two products (Android and Live) couldn’t be more different, certainly the companies are going to be competing in yet another arena. But, where the author really starts to raise some interesting fodder for discussion is when taking into consideration how the carriers make out on an Android platform compared to, say, Blackberry or Palm.
“Carriers like Verizon and AT&T could spoil Google’s party. Besides being worried that open-software standards could expose users to software attacks and security breaches, they (more more importantly) have financial worries.”
Will it be profitable for carriers to support the Android platform? There are certainly some carriers involved in the OHA. Will an open platform start to cut into the lucrative business market? Perhaps this is true, in part. But data still costs money and I would argue that for business users the effects of Android are many years away. First of all, the Blackberry usage model, technology and user interface are far superior and hard to replicate. Even Apple, the UI messiah, created a sub-RIM email product with it’s iPhone. Hard-core business users won’t be switching from their Blackberry’s to Android any time soon. IT managers that support Enterprise level mobile data services won’t be switching either.
I think that Android will have a very different effect. I think we’ll start to experience the long tail of mobile data services as free-with-subscription and sub-$150 devices start giving consumers access to the data they’ve been waiting for. Data subscriptions for non-business users will hit $10/month (in the US) and carriers will find new markets that they’ve never been able to tap.
image credit to gapingvoid
Tags: android, blackberry, carriers, Google, iphone, long tail, microsoft
