...Opinion Research Corporation's recent survey that found 21 per cent of all smartphones — excluding the BlackBerry and iPhone — purchased during the last holiday season were returned for being too difficult to set up or install.
The only guarantee we have in this industry is that the mobile landscape will take on many varying forms in the coming decades.
Sue Klose, corporate development director, News Digital Media.
These findings are a warning for Android and LiMo: innovative and differentiating features may be net plaudits, but phone makers need also to face the reality of consumer behaviour and avoid straying too far from buyers' comfort zone.
Usability ties in with functionality in consumer decision-making, according to Mark Novosel, market analyst for telecommunications with research firm IDC Australia.
"Style is next to functionality in terms of importance when consumers are choosing a mobile device," he explains. "Unless the whole package, including looks, functionality and of course stability are there, then there is little chance for Android to succeed."
With more than one billion mobiles sold worldwide last year alone, the prize accompanying such success is staggering — and the OHA, LiMo and other platform developers are pulling out all the stops to be part of it.
Reflecting just how high the stakes are, in March venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers offered a US$100m fund to give developers an incentive to build their apps for the iPhone. In May, RIM one-upped Apple with a US$150m fund to encourage developers to focus on its devices, particularly the new BlackBerry Bold.
With those kinds of incentives on offer, Google will have to offer developers a significant advantage to encourage them onto Android. Could Web 2.0, with the de facto development platforms of MySpace and Facebook, be the answer?
Web 2.0 development has proved attractive for business search service TrueLocal, a News Limited property that recently began developing for its online half-brother MySpace. Could TrueLocal be coaxed to support Android or a similar platform? Perhaps, says Sue Klose, corporate development director at News Digital Media.
"We see value in developing mobile sites that work on open platforms as well as more specific development initiatives that are specific to a device," she said. "Our goal as a content provider is to enable the consumer to access our sites when and how they choose. The only guarantee we have in this industry is that the mobile landscape will take on many varying forms in the coming decades, and as a proactive mobile content provider we need to be ready to act when those changes occur."
When is open, too open?
In the long term, unchecked proliferation of the "open" philosophy could well backfire if some OHA members try to localise their innovation — leading to Balkanisation along the lines of Linux, which now has 150 different distributions. Broad compatibility has been achieved in the Linux world by maintaining a common Linux kernel, but Google will have to work hard to ensure the same thing happens with Android.
Perhaps the most beneficial move for Google could be the growing availability of open-access wireless spectrum capable of covering long distances. This 700MHz spectrum, recently sold off in the US with an open access condition, would provide smaller device makers and start-up carriers with enough room to offer differentiated devices to niche markets.
For example, bookshops like Borders or Kinokuniya could offer customers an Android-based phone optimised for reading electronic, interactive books delivered over open-access spectrum. Content streaming vendors could offer their own wireless devices to customers as part of an end-to-end service package, bypassing royalty-hungry mainstream carriers.
Support, however, is an issue: Google's goal of enabling the bringing of "new handsets to market faster and at a much lower cost", as the spokesperson put it, may sound great — but it's a potential nightmare for operators. The cost of supporting a range of mobile platforms makes all vendors and carriers eager to limit the potential variability between the devices they offer.
Mark Novosel, telecommunications analyst, IDC
Android's success will ultimately be measured by Google's ability to woo a market that is currently flooded with choice. In the ever-fickle mobile market where overnight obsolescence is a fact of life, Android's innovation must also be matched by big numbers to ensure the necessary profitability. It wasn't too long ago, for example, that Motorola's Razr was burning up the sales charts, but the industry has moved on and Motorola is still looking for an equally popular successor.
IDC's Novosel believes these the cold, hard reality of the global market will make for interesting sailing for Android, LiMo and even some of the established mobile platform operators.
"[Android] certainly sounds promising," he said, "but device vendors will at some point have to reassess their options because it will not make sense to continue supporting multiple operating systems. The R&D costs would outweigh the benefits and sooner or later one OS will emerge as the de facto standard, alongside Symbian."
"At this stage," he adds, "it would be safe to assume that Android uptake will be quite slow, and a lot of work needs to be done in order for [it] to become a success. It's not to say this is impossible, but it will be an uphill battle."
Android and Limo - vapourware promises.