Even before Nokia delivered what may well prove a killer blow to Google's ambition of setting universal handset software standards, the search giant's Android plan was hitting roadblocks - highlighting that the company, for all its internet strengths, is a novice in understanding the structures and processes of the mobile handset and developer communities. Just before the Symbian Foundation was unveiled, Google had been forced to admit that Android would be delayed, even though it had shown the first prototype just a week earlier.
When Google and its 30-strong band of supporters, the Open Handset Alliance, was formed last November, it promised the mobile software platform - Linux-based and extending all the way up to the user interface and applications layer - would be commercially ready by mid-year, with the first handsets to appear soon after. In fact, Android and its initial devices are now slated for year end, with many industry insiders predicting they will be quite a bit later.
One lesson Google will have learned is that, even when using open standards and cross-platform tools, there is a lot of work that goes into delivering a usable handset to an operator, and this has to be repeated for each individual carrier. So while T-Mobile USA says it is still confident of launching an Android phone in the fourth quarter, reinforcing its strategy of being in the forefront of mobile internet developments, insiders at its rival Sprint Nextel - equally focused on stealing a march in new mobile architectures - say the operator will not be able to unveil an Android device until 2009, because Google has expended so many resources on the T-Mobile deal. Part of the delay is because Sprint wants to create a unique interface and user experience on its Android phones, although much of this effort may now be focused on WiMAX and the Clearwire effort, where Google is a lead software partner.
China Mobile, which had slated an Android phone for the third quarter, is now likely to wait until the first quarter of next year - Google would do well to devote some of its resources to that customer, given that China is the market where Mobile Linux is most likely to grab dominant share against Symbian.
Android has come up against other hurdles in its probably over-ambitious schedule. All of them are predictable, almost inevitable, for a brand new software architecture, but will have to be addressed in the glaring light of industry attention, and alongside the Symbian Foundation, which at least has tools and technologies that are already well tried and tested. Developers' forums, commenting on Android, speak of it being difficult to develop applications for the new platform, and complain that Google keeps making changes as it races to finish its own software. The latter is a good example of where Google could have learned a valuable lesson from its nemesis Nokia, which has spoken on several occasions of the mistakes it made when it first ventured into open source - notably changing its own software at too late a stage and forcing developers to adapt to this.
Android's biggest challenge, in the wake of the Symbian Foundation, is to keep the handset makers onside. They need to put in the lion's share of effort to create devices optimized for Android and for individual carriers - and so form a platform with sufficient market reach to attract developers. This is where Nokia, Apple and others score, since they control their own handset programs as well as their programmer communities. Google is forced to seek to influence the handset makers at a distance, and now faces the threat that the largest companies will refocus their development priorities towards the less risky Symbian, whose Foundation has been joined by all of the top five manufacturers. This would also influence the cellcos - AT&T has been doing feasibility analysis on Android, but has joined the Symbian Foundation as one of three founding operators; Verizon will not back Symbian because of its CDMA network, but has been half-hearted about Android and may look to another initiative such as LiMo Foundation for its open access developments; other Android backers like Telecom Italia and Telefonica have strong ties to Nokia.
Google remains upbeat of course, and keen to present Android as a technology that will genuinely bring the internet experience to the handset, and will be the foundation for a new breed of open devices that will be less dependent on carrier lock-in and branding. Andy Rubin, director of mobile platforms at Google, said in an interview last week that managing the software development effort while giving its partners the opportunity to lobby for new features takes time. "This is where the pain happens," he says. "We are very, very close."
But this highlights the downside of open source and Linux in the mobile world, where the OS is fragmented and, unlike Symbian, openness is not balanced by a firm guiding hand from the companies with the greatest financial investment in the mobile internet, in the short term at least - the operators and handset makers.
Meanwhile, what of the other would-be smartphone OS giant, Microsoft? The company now has no hope of gaining the position in handsets that it has on the PC, and has been shifting its bid for influence and customer control to server-based standards like service delivery. However, Windows Mobile has improved over successive releases in terms of its functionality and is powerful in its mobile enterprise heartland, though constantly squeezed there by RIM. It even powers some "iPhone killers" these days, notably the HTC Touch range, and Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung all have a small number of Windows devices, mainly for the business market. So while Windows Mobile will not become a major contender compared to Symbian and Linux, it will maintain its position as a strong OS for a high value niche, with a tightly controlled software environment that may be closed, but carries attractions for its own developer community and operator base. In this respect, it lives alongside the similarly positioned OSs on the iPhone and BlackBerry.
The next release of Windows Mobile, version 7, seems to have been brought forward, so that the initial handsets could appear in the first quarter of next year, about the same time as the early Android devices. An executive at HTC, the biggest supporter of Windows Mobile, said it would deliver a Windows Mobile 7 device in Q109, shortly after an Android phone. Microsoft is protective of details about Windows Mobile 7, but there have been several leaks about its features, and those planned for release 8. Key enhancements slated for the end of the year include multitouch and gesture recognition support, to keep up with the iPhone and the Korean innovations, and a more "consumer friendly" user interface is promised, as well as a broader range of consumer services, including music and image management. These will emerge from Microsoft's Project Pink and its recent acquisition of smartphone specialist Danger.
Last month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said Windows 7 and Windows Mobile 7 would focus heavily on improved collaboration and connectivity between PCs and mobile phones, harnessing the recently unveiled Live Mesh collaboration and synchronization platform. He told a conference in Tokyo: "We're also a participant in building software for the mobile phones, and our proposition is to build a great mobile operating system, but also to have it be the one that connects best to the Windows PCs... For a customer there are going to be phones with larger screens, and PCs with smaller screens. In fact, there will be even an overlap, but I think the key for us is to drive all the applications, and let the user move easily back and forth." This shows Microsoft resigning itself to a minor role in the mobile OS per se, but falling back on its real strength, its position on the PC, something Nokia and other mobile players cannot emulate (hence Nokia's licensing of the Exchange synchronization software from Microsoft, even at the height of the two companies' hostility to one another). Play to your existing strengths before taking on the world - this is another lesson that Google would do well to learn as it pushes forward into the mobile market.
