Google has Android and Chrome OS to squash any chance MS has in mobile search (and online services) in both phones and ‘netbooks’.

As Daniel points out Android will have the same problem as Windows Mobile, “one” OS on a slew of different mobile devices. Guaranteeing that no “two phones” work the same. Splintered hardware efforts breed splintered third party development. Androids benefits are: 1) it’s free and 2) it’s actually available NOW with multi-touch capabilities. Windows Mobile, not so much….

I mean does Google really care about the phone business? No of course not. They just want to make sure Windows Mobile has no chance of getting out of the grave MS has dug for it. And hence, Bing has little chance of being important in the mobile search world.

Apple certainly won’t default to Bing for search on the iPhone. As long as Windows Mobile is being sold, will many hardware manufactures want to help out MS by selling an Android phone default to Bing for search?

It’s like when Pepsico owned KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut etc. etc. Coke distributers simply had to point out to potential restaurant owners is, ‘Do you want to subsidize your competition by selling Pepsi?’ Of course not.

As Daniel and others have already said, Google is not targeting the iPhone with Android.

Cheers,
Argosy

People need their phones. If a platform is not stably running third party apps, people tend to not install any. They will use their so-called smartphones only with the built-in software that is hopefully tested, thereby effectivly down-grading them to feature phones. This is the case for -as it appears- Windows Mobile, Symbian, and also RIM.

But there is a significant number of people out there who really understand what a smartphone should be about. Enter the iPhone. More and more people start recognising that this is actually a _smartphone_. Apps run stably and are usable.

So the Gartner report does not properly reflect what is happening right now, because they count those maybe 90 % of Symbian, Windows Mobile and RIM phones that are really only used as feature phones, among the smartphones.

They completely miss the fact that the perception of smartphones -now that the first true smartphone showed up- will quickly change, and the market situation follows suit. This is very important for developpers, since they cannot sell apps to “feature phone users”.

Does Android “just work”, like a phone should? If yes, it might become a player. If it is in line with the usual Nerd chaos of Linux, the 10000 apps already available now (a great success I must say) could well just be the typical emanations of the devoted Linux community, a hermetic world of its own.

I apologize in advance for the pedantry.

The media is/are: In British English collective nouns are plural. In U.S. English collective nouns are singular. So in London, you say “the Bank of England ARE . . .” while in Washington, it’s “the Federal Reserve Bank IS . . . “

So sue me – I’m a traditionalist. Next thing you’ll be telling me the data is incorrect.

And who said.. was meant to be an ellipsis? There’s no missing words; it’s just a laid-back colon!

–
umm
a cigarette that has already bein lit and smoked and put out before finished to save until later.

Umm jar: The jar you put your umms in. Or any jar that looks like a bee
-Urban Dictionary
Love it!
Enz

Sorry, back to the article. Android is a great platform, no doubt, but didn’t you actually suggest that it would occupy the low-end smartphone segment while the iPhone took the top-end? I guess that’s not happening anymore, since Apple has repeatedly said that it’s not leaving a price umbrella to allow fierce competition on its turf. So it’s just Apple, Google, and RIM (who is caught is the middle) that own the lucrative part of the smartphone market (Nokia didn’t really make great smartphones until very recently.. meaning anything that isn’t Symbian… and uptake has been pretty slow on those devices). but as TundraBoy and some others have pointed out, Google isn’t planning on battling Apple directly, and would rather just not get locked out the market if Windows Mobile took over, which is why they launched Android. Since Apple already gives Google prime locations on its phone, why would they want to destroy it in order for a arguably less-inspiring phone to take its place? Google needs a halo product for showcasing its search technologies… and I think the iPhone fits the bill quite nicely. I don’t think Google is searching for a substitute for the iPhone like “analysts” would like people to think.

It’s just the so called “analysts” like Gartner that make up predictions all of this in the hope that their revenue stream doesn’t dry up and they start losing readers (who apparently don’t like Apple in the first place, since they are unfamiliar with their products anyway). I’d say they’re similar to Greenpeace… dying but it’ll be a quite a while before anyone gets them to shut up about Apple, because obviously they had the balls to give Dell (who did NOTHING in environmental terms, but said EVERYTHING) a better score, even currently, than Apple (who eliminated all PVC and BFRs… no other PC maker has done that yet). It’s all in the name of publicity, and it sickens me.

P.S. I’ve just noticed I’ve repeated most of what Daniel has said one time or another in his articles. Well done Daniel, for 3+ years of journalism excellence!

This post was mentioned on Twitter by DanielEran: New: Gartner’s presumptuous coronation of Android as the Windows of smartphones – http://tinyurl.com/ykjfw3u...

“The only hope that Android has in the consumer market is if the is a plethora of device options that are relatively cheap; more hardware features at a subsidized price close to zero. Otherwise, go iPhone!”

There seems to be a consensus on this being the likely outcome.

The only hope that Android has in the consumer market is if the is a plethora of device options that are relatively cheap; more hardware features at a subsidized price close to zero. Otherwise, go iPhone!