Neutron :: Bomb

by John Calian |
Topics: Android | Google | Smartphone Marketplace

Back in the day, it was widely accepted that Windows, Intel and the multitudes of box OEMs won the PC war over Apple. I believe that this still holds true. One of the reasons for the dominance was the fact that Microsoft built only the operating system, not the hardware it ran on, unlike Apple. Because of this, many hardware OEMs built systems to run windows, and the market became saturated with the machines running Windows, driving down price and making them ubiquitous. Fragmentation won this war because the PC machines came in at a much lower price point; the closed system lost due to its high cost and limited distribution.

Is the reverse going to happen in the mobile world, will fragmentation hurt rather help?

Apple once again has a closed system, but this time around price is not a factor (today, at least); and today its not just Windows providing the competition: its Google that is actually bringing the strongest challenge with a fragmented offering.

A recent post by a manager at Google argues strongly that Android is not fragmented. But, the facts speak for themselves:

1. Google has released numerous versions of its Android OS, to different OEMs for different devices (6 versions exist today)


2. Each OEM has numerous smartphones running Android (over 60 devices today)


3. Each OEM uses different hardware (screens, GPUs, CPUs, memory)

IMHO, that is a fragmented distribution, and the net result is a failure to keep up with Apple in terms of market presence, developer saturation and overall customer satisfaction. The story here is simple: without strong developer support, the apps platform has not taken off, which leaves customers less satisfied, and in turn the market story is not strong.

A mobile app developer who writes code for Android needs to consider that there are many different OS versions (check out the graph depicting current distribution of the OS below) AND many different hardware configurations. One smartphone might have one hardkey; another could seven; and still another could have zero. Writing code now becomes more complex as one would need to account for all the variations in software and hardware. This is the downside of fragmentation, and a big reason I think the developer community has not exploded like it has for the iPhone.



Because there is not a strong app store presence for Android, consumers do not see the choices in front of them, they don't feel that 'there is app for them' around every corner.

Overall, though, I think it is the lack of a strong marketing story that has hurt Android the most. Apple is everywhere, Android is not.

Bottom line: there are lots of Android phones being sold, more than Apple on most days. And this makes sense, since only one OEM is building iPhones, and many OEMs are building Android based phones. But who is making the most money? Who is winning the hearts and minds of consumers?