Googles plans in the mobile phone sector interests a lot of companies in this field. Last fall Google-CEO Eric Schmidt has announced the Android Platform and together with 33 paertners they want to revolutionizethe mobile market. Therefore everyone expected big announcements at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. But Google was very contained with announcements about the GPhone. Anyhow Android is topic number one at the congress.
There are a lot of prototypes from different companies where android is running, but they really look amazing now. Real phones with Android are expected for the second half of 2008 or beginning 2009. But there are some phones which looks useable. See the video to get an impression.
I personally think Android will allow mobile phone users a new kind of fexibility, they didn’t know until now from mobile phones. I think this could be a great chance for the Android platform, simmilar to the introduction of window in the early 90s.
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
Android is one topic in Barcelona: The Alliance showed 2 Prototype, but prominent companies are missing.
The first mobile phone with Googles open operating system Android was shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
DemonstrationsIn the end of last year Google has introduced an alliance of 34 IT companies which support the Android platform. Some of them are China Mobile, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Telefonica, LG and eBay. The big three, Nokia, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson indeed are missing.
During the Congress it is supposed that ARM, Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics could indroduce further prototypes.
Masterplan
Googles means are quite clear: With their own, free operating system, the will defend the major concurrent the the mobile OS sector, Microsoft with their Windows Mobile OS. Furthermore they will strenghten their position on the mobile market to enhance their revenue with mobile advertisments. The first commercial products are expected for Q3 2008.
This week the The Mobile World Congress 3GSM takes place in Barcelona, and is the focus of much of the industry interest. In this year we can expect a lot of new innovations during this Congress. Main topics are User Interface, Touchscreen, Geotagging, online content and much more. Sony-Ericsson has introduced several new devices, including their first Windows Mobile Phone. The market share is moving from the desktop to mobile devices in a lot of different application fields. Of course this is ideal for new players to bring innovative products on the market.
Look for Hardware vendors to try and innovate independently from the network operators, look for a mobile device OS battle between established closed platforms and new open stacks (e.g. Google’s Android) and look for the network operators to try and hang on to their position on providing value added services beyond just network provision. LBS is becoming more mainstream, although it still needs to make the jump beyond providing maps on your mobile to provide context to all mobile services delivered by your mobile.
The iPhone has had limited market impact in Europe it seems, although how to design a mobile device from the point of usability and been redefined, and hopefully other manufactures must take note, just try and get someone who has used an iPhone for a week, to go back to Windows Mobile or Symbian.
The mobile industry is more dynamic this year than is has even been, the stakes for industry are much higher and hopefully the customer will benefit as ultimately mobile services should be an incredibly useful part of our lives, and will be if the industry can match the openness of the web in general [edparsons].
So lets see what will happen this week, maybe we will see also some innovations for “geo” applications.
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