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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Everyone’s selling Android phones… but who’s selling Android?

Mark Bridge writes:

Samsung. Huawei. Acer. HTC. Motorola. LG. Toshiba. Sony Ericsson. INQ. Dell. They’re all after a slice of the Android cake. (The Android cake is an éclair at the moment. Not particularly good for slicing. But I digress).

And my, what advertisements we’ve seen. Most recently Motorola has been knocking the iPhone while HTC has been playing with marker pens.

But those ad campaigns are mainly about manufacturers and phones. As you’d expect, really. Not about Android.

Compare and contrast with Apple, which sells its mobile operating system and its mobile phone together. You could even argue, given the recent TV commercials, it’s barely selling the phone at all. It’s all about the apps. Everyone who’s anyone has an iPhone that’s pregnant with applications… and they want you to know about each and every one of them.

Is that a problem?  Yes, for Android.

Android for saleIt seems that interest in Android is starting to fade – because no-one’s really selling the benefits. Recently, mobile game business Gameloft has said it’s cutting back its Android game development. “Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products”, said Gameloft’s finance director Alexandre de Rochefort.

It’s a similar story from Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza, who says the Android platform is lacking a decent central marketing strategy.

So – what’s going to happen?

Are Google or the Open Handset Alliance going to start advertising Android?  I think not. Google’s rather too busy with its Chrome OS and the OHA’s members have way too many diverse interests.

Of course, we could see Google pushing Android with the much-rumoured ‘Google phone’ that’s expected next year.

Or – perhaps – we’ve already seen the beginning of the next stage. It is, surely, no coincidence that the Motorola Droid’s name contains the second syllable of Android. No coincidence that the Droid's iPhone-knocking ad campaign talked about operating system capabilities. And no coincidence that the Motorola Droid got version 2.0 of Android before the code was barely dry. If it really is no coincidence but is part of an agreement between Motorola and Google, who knows what could be next from this partnership?  Android-lovers just need to hope it happens soon enough to maintain the momentum.

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Opinion Articles

‘The Eyes Have It’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

DoCoMo are one of many network operators and handset manufacturers demonstrating innovative new products as Mobile World Congress. Our eye was caught by the employee demonstrating “Eye Controlled Earphones”. It’s a good job the ladies from the CBOSS stand weren’t walking past at the time.

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'Mobile Money Monday' at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Monday’s Mobile World Congress conference agenda dedicated one of 4 streams to Mobile Money - Transfers, Transactions and Technology allowing all stakeholders to share experiences and debate the future of Mobile and Money.

Two types of service dominated presentations and panel discussions; Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabling payment at traditional Point of Sale (PoS), and the Mobile Wallet replacing plastic or cash.

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‘Innovation Corner’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Here’s my pick of the 3 most innovative companies I’ve uncovered at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

Cootek.com win the prize for simplest innovation... an accurate touch screen keyboard. They’re a few months away from being ready to release the software to handset manufacturers, but the demo handsets worked very well. The keyboard assumes the user is not going to press the intended key, but in fact might miss and press another key in the same area. Based on this knowledge and an extensive dictionary of words and language context, it’s able to determine the intended word with surprising accuracy. I sincerely hope their technology will be made available for the Nexus One in the not too distant future.

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Google “Mobile First” from Eric Schmidt’s Key Note at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, presented a compelling vision of a mobile centric future. The phone has become the “high value end point” for Google services enabled by a combination of increasing handset power, mobile data networks and cloud computing. By far the scarcest resource is the bandwidth available through the mobile data networks. Google appear committed to work with Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to maximise bandwidth usage, although several audience questions suggested scepticism from the main stream mobile industry. Eric expressed a need to maintain a harmonious relationship with MNOs stating Google could not operate its service on mobile devices without their co-operation.

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The great Windows Mobile 7 conspiracy theory

Mark Bridge writes:

I like a good conspiracy theory. A good one, mind you. None of this “Funny thing happened on the way to Mars” nonsense. Oh no, not me. And, despite occasionally mirroring Jerry Fletcher by balancing a bottle on the door handle, I’ve never been inclined to publish such a theory. Until now.

You see, it’s Mobile World Congress in a fortnight’s time. Which is when the great and the good of the mobile industry – along with their mates and hangers-on – head for Barcelona. Microsoft will be there. They’re holding a press briefing on Monday afternoon. And there’s a lot of talk about Windows Mobile 7 being (unofficially) on the agenda. But where’s the evidence?

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