Googlogic

Has Google lost the fine art of going to market?

Chris O’Brien of Mercury News asks whether Android is going the way of Google’s open social initiative (to counter Facebook). The challenge starts off way Android figures down the list of operating systems for smart-phones. At the top of the heap are BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, the iPhone and Symbian. This last one is produced by a consortium of the largest cell phone manufacturers in the world, including Ericsson and Nokia.

Given that Symbian will soon become open-source, Android’s pitch appeal – one of developer freedom, pales. Throw in the fact that a group called the LiMo Foundation is developing a Linux-based operating system for mobile phones, and Android becomes just one of three open-source options after counting in the restricted freedom allowed to developers by Apple’s iPhone. And then came Chrome browser from Google stable. It turns out that even that will take a while before it becomes the choice browser in Android phones.

So why is Google doing this? Here’s how I can explain it.

Google sees everything as a media real estate. Be it the web pages where its ads are served up, the videos on youtube and now to operating systems and open source applications. It can’t have enough of walls to stick its bills. It is fearful that some day it will exhaust its relevance if web goes out of fashion and so it wants an upper hand on anything that remotely seems like competition. There you get it. Competition. Google feels it’s easier to chase than to lead. So up comes a feature rich product that the world loves, say iPhone, Google wants a slice of that. It goes ahead and develops Android – the open source operating system. Microsoft leads the browser market? Google wants a piece of action there. In comes Chrome browser. Google can’t afford to lose consumer mindshare. It just has to be there, at the core of people’s mind. Think media mileage, consumer outreach, think Google!

Didn’t we express shock when Google paid $3.1 billion for YouTube? Now we wonder the same way how Android or Chrome browser will make money. May be, we’re wrong. It’s advertisement for Google, the way Google builds its brand value. The money it makes the old fashioned way – by serving ads. And that’s not going to change anytime soon!!!

Except if a web equivalent of Wall Street meltdown threatens redefining the space…

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Google smashing foundation

Looks like finally here’s something that could give Google a taste of what it has been giving to others by rote – competition. Nokia announced it was acquiring 52% outstanding shares in an all cash deal ($410 mn) in the Symbian software platform, bunching all versions into one, and turning that over to a foundation for free, open-source release.

The move certainly has ramifications across the smartphone landscape. Strategically, the formation of the Symbian Foundation and the opening of the Symbian platform is an aggressive pre-emptive strike against Google, its Open Handset Alliance and its open-source Android mobile platform. Perfectly timed too, since Android seems to be falling behind schedule.

Om Malik sees the move as part of the industry's adjusting to a new set of realities, chief among them the need for speed -- in churning out new handsets fast enough for fickle fashion and in allowing developers to keep pace without the burdens of multiple proprietary platforms. Now the question is just how much openness the carriers will agree to.

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