Why Android?
Google's Android mobile phone software platform may be the net big opportunity for
application software developers.
Google announced the open Handset Alliance and the Android platform in November
of 2007, releasing the first beta version of the Android Development Kit (SDK)
at the same time. Within a matter of few months, over 1 million people had down-
loaded versions of the SDK from Google's website. In the United states, T-Mobile
announced the G1 Android mobile phone in October of 2008, and estimates are that
several hundred thousand G1s were sold before the end of that year. there are already
several competing mobile phone software stacks in the market, so why is there such
interest in Android?
Android has the potential for removing the barriers to success in the development and
sale of a new generation of mobile phone application software. just as the the stand-
ardized PC and Macintosh a standard mobile phone application environment, will creat
a market for mobile applications---and the opportunity for applications developers to
a profit from those application.
Why hesn't it been profitable to develop mobile applications for smartphones until
now? And what are the problems that Android alleviates?
Fragmentation
About 70 million smartphone were sold in 2007, so there are a lot of phones
available to run application, but each brand has a diferent application environ-
ment. This is particularly true of Linux-based phones, where each handset vendor
has had to assemble scores of pieces of third-party software to create a viable mobile
phone platform. There is no chance that they would al choose the same compo-
nents to build a mobile smartphone.
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