3 Comments

Does Android Matter? And Should You Even Care?

November 6, 2007 by in Random with 3 Comments

As a mobile phone user I should be excited about a open computing platform, right? Google is behind it, that makes it better, right? As a grizzled mobile techie I think the excitement about Android is nothing short of over hype.

We now have another large company further driving a spike into the already ultra segmented mobile world. Off the top of my head we have BREW on Verizon, Java on Blackberries, UNIX on iPhones (Only if you hack it, GOD FORBID), Motorola’s nonsense, Symbian on Nokias, Windows Mobile on tons of devices, PalmOS soon to be Linux on Palms. Care to name the rest I missed?

Matter of fact I’m of the opinion if Google’s name wasn’t attached to it this announcement would be relegated to the irrelevant mess of tech news that litters the web. All they are doing is bringing a bunch of people together to design an OS and phone. I’m glad Google was able to get China Mobile, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint Nextel, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, and T-Mobile (Notice who is absent) to sit at a table but all these vendors will never be able to agree on a hardware spec, nor will it design a good looking piece of hardware.

Tech journalist/Blowhard journalist John C Dvork even went on the the record stating how open source SUCKS. Sucks is a harsh word, but If you design a horse by committee don’t be surprised if it ends up as a camel.

I won’t be surprised to see this grand concept fail as quick as it was announced.

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  • Laydros

    I think it matters, and it won’t fall flat on it’s face, but it is underwhelming, and not a big deal at all. Everyone thinks right now that anything google touches is golden. Google search was amazing 10 years ago or whenever, and only just now has the competition caught up. GMail is great and the competition is still trying to catch up, while Google makes it better. GReader and GDocs are good, but not quite complete, although better than most. A lot of their stuff is kinda half baked, but they have had some serious hits, so people trust they will do something good. That is why there is so much hype. However I think just like MS going into the MP3 players or consoles didn’t really rock the market from its foundations, Google going into cell phones won’t either.

    As for the Dvorak article. I work at IBM in software. I have to believe to some extent that proprietary is important. When our customers say jump we say how high, and that is absolutely necessary. However the writer is a bit off in his statements. Every time I get frustrated with open source software (unix related including MySQL, not necessarily newer stuff) I find out it’s something stupid I am doing, not the software. There is a problem with the developers being bull headed, but there is an equal problem with users being bone-headed. There are some valid points, but there is probably a company that would support whatever he needs with MySQL. He would have to pay for it, just like a proprietary software, but it would “just work.”

  • http://www.saltypirate.com mark h

    “All they are doing is bringing a bunch of people together to design an OS and phone”

    Really? Phone as well? I haven’t read that anywhere (although I haven’t been reading much about it, nor that closely).

    Also, HTC is at the table as well, which is, I think, the best part of this news (better than Google).

  • tensenki

    In 5 years, I think this may be the most widely used version of Linux out there.

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