

Are Wireless Carriers Responsible For Fragmentation? - rpikeca
http://www.techiediy.com/are-wireless-carriers-responsible-for-fragmentation

======
otoburb
The article is correct in honing in on the carrier and 3rd party firmware add-
ons tacked onto vanilla Android releases (e.g. ICS).

Carriers rarely develop their own firmware extensions/skinning. They manage
the process through specifications, where marketing will provide skinning
assets and custom specs. In-house carrier developers rarely/never get to touch
the device.

RIM was a notable exception to the rule where carriers gave them the
flexibility to download firmware updates directly to the device, provided they
didn't interfere with the minimal branding and custom apps.

Apple came along and forged a deal that all carriers hate. Although carriers
may enjoy the increase in ARPU, carriers in general hate dealing with Apple;
whether it's the T&Cs, scrambling to get device shipments in on time, or
general Job-sian brashness.

This is all known history. What people forget is that carriers are typically
large enterprises that are very slow to change. Most are probably still using
old (i.e. existing!) binary terminal release processes. I call it 'binary'
because they are either in complete control ("code to my spec you powerless
device OEMS!") or at the mercy of Apple ("hey XYZ carrier -- my way or the
highway"). Notice that in both of these situations, there's very little leeway
for maneuvering.

Android comes along. Carriers hate Apple's way of doing business. Brain-dead
analysis shows that Android didn't have the brand cachet that iPhones had. So
naturally they wanted to re-exert their control back into the process.
Unfortunately, the only way they knew how was by (probably literally) throwing
the book (read: terminal specs) back to Android OEMs.

And so, you now have the current situation of:

1) Fragmentation; and 2) Slow firmware updates.

Carriers don't have the funding, organization and/or willpower to subsidize
firmware updates.

 _The upgrade process for the OS on a smart phone should be multiple times
over the course of a year and yet it seems that there is often only a single
update._

This sentiment echos a portion of Android consumers. Yes, it's a big problem.
But the rapid plethora of devices released by Android device manufacturers
demonstrate that they are _also_ operating using old processes and risk-
benefit models because they simply want to sell as many devices as they can to
carriers.

In short, the article title is misleading: _everybody_ in the mobile ecosystem
is responsible for the fragmentation, mainly for what I see as large
organizations unable to change their terminal approval and release cycles
enough to cope.

