Will Android turn out to be a dud for Google?
That question has been percolating ever since November, when the mobile software plan was unveiled. It didn’t help that the early Android developer tools got a thumbs down from one of the key groups Google was hoping to win over with its “open” platform. With launch delays this year, the suspicion has been growing that this was a half-baked response to one of Google’s most pressing needs (to promote the use of mobile advertising) rather than a carefully thought through strategy for a new mobile internet platform.
Certainly, the buzz in internet and mobile circles has not been very positive of late (as we reported here and here earlier this month.) The first Android phone, the HTC Dream running on the T-Mobile network, is due to be unveiled in New York on Tuesday – my colleagues Paul Taylor and Andrew Parker have some of the details here.
In many ways this will have much more in common with a new Windows Mobile device (right down to the hardware maker, HTC, which has thrived making handsets running the Microsoft software) than a new iPhone – and when was the last time you saw people lining up in the streets for one of those?
Still, it’s worth keeping things in perspective. This is only part of a bigger game plan to plant Google’s services (and advertising) into a billion people’s palms. Google knows it must live on every handset and software platform. Trying its own makes sense – particularly when two rivals with aspirations in internet services, Microsoft and Nokia, already have their own mobile software stacks.
It’s possible that Android will end up as one of the half-dozen or so software platforms on which the mobile industry depends. But at this (admittedly early) stage in the game, it doesn’t look like Google’s best hope for going mobile.
