

Why Android Will Dominate Japan - ig0rskee
http://blog.mobify.me/2009/12/05/why-android-will-dominate-japan/

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mpk
Ever since Google announced Android I predicted that it would become a
dominant mobile environment. We're not there yet, but it's becoming
increasingly evident that Android is here to stay.

It shares a lot of similarities with linux. That linux hasn't become dominant
on the desktop can (to a large extent) be attributed to the entrenched desktop
market where people and organizations use the same system (and applications)
over many years.

Mobile doesn't have that yet. People switch phones every year or so and are
used to them all being different. Vendors can therefore pretty much pick a new
OS every few years (I'm simplifying this, of course).

When selecting a new OS, vendors will evaluate two main elements - price and
control. Pricing usually being bound to licenses (a form of control held by a
third party), it usually just boils down to control.

And what does Android offer? Control over everything vendors care about. For
the companies involved, software development is cheap, but not so cheap that
they can just build an OS from scratch (hi there Palm!). Also, Android is low
on legacy and fully web-ified (sorry for using that word).

Sure, you love your iPhone. Spare me the feedback. I get forwarded loads of
links telling me how crap Android systems are compared to Apple's stuff. But
that's just Apple with Apple hardware, Apple software and hard contracts for
the carriers. All the other vendors are hell-bent on breaking that. With
Android Google (who is not a vendor in this space) is basically flooding that
market with free, top-of-the-line R&D on the software end. Of course people
building the hardware are going to pick that up.

~~~
houseabsolute
> That linux hasn't become dominant on the desktop can (to a large extent) be
> attributed to the entrenched desktop market where people and organizations
> use the same system (and applications) over many years.

Its inferiority in most arenas of modern desktop usage explains its failure
better.

> When selecting a new OS, vendors will evaluate two main elements - price and
> control. Pricing usually being bound to licenses (a form of control held by
> a third party), it usually just boils down to control.

I agree that vendors will look at price. But it's less obvious to me that
control is important to them. I would think that software people are willing
to pay a lot of money for would be more valuable.

> top-of-the-line R&D

Almost. Almost top-of-the-line. As you mentioned, iPhone is _the_ top of the
line.

> Of course people building the hardware are going to pick that up.

I don't necessarily agree with all the points you used to reach this
conclusion, but I will say that there's compelling empirical evidence that
hardware manufacturers are going to buy in to Android. I don't think that this
conclusion though supports your initial claim ("Android will become a dominant
mobile environment"), unless you meant dominant in the less common "not
dominant but at least better than Windows Mobile" sense.

------
delayclose
The only non-fanboy argument in the article is Japanese carriers' hunger for
control. This is absolutely true, and might be the reason Android gets some
traction in Japan. But consider the implications of this for the user -- why
is it that you think that Android is a "good" OS, something that you'd want on
your own phone? "It's open and I can do whatever I want with it"? Well, not
after the Japanese carriers have their way with it.

~~~
pheon
yup and they will cripple everything to point where its impressive how low the
maximum perf of a 3rd party app will be... hopefully this round its gets to
double digit MHz

------
kingkongreveng_
It has a cutesy Japanese style mascot. Also, they love robots.

