Google Android: Mobile open source has finally arrived

Open source, despite its community roots, often doesn't become mainstream until corporations get involved. There are notable exceptions--Mozilla Firefox and the Apache Web server being just two--but often it is corporate self-interest that provides the mechanism to deliver the value of community-developed open source to a mainstream audience.

While the mobile market remains highly fragmented, therefore, I take it as a very encouraging sign that Google has thrown its considerable heft behind Android, its open-source mobile operating platform.

Sure, we've had mobile open-source companies for years. I was part of one of the first: Lineo, an embedded Linux vendor that distributed an optimized Linux distribution for PDAs like the Sharp Zaurus. More recently, Funambol has proved popular as a mobile application server, specializing in synchronization technology.

But just as Linux's big moment on the server came with IBM's $1 billion commitment to fund its development and marketing, so, too, will the mobile open-source market come into its own with Google Android.

Android has recently pulled ahead of Microsoft's Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, according to data from AdMob, hitting a global 5 percent market share (in terms of access to mobile ads, not units shipped), while continuing to grow 25 percent month over month.

While Microsoft dominates on the desktop, with even its not-yet-released Windows 7 beating Linux, according to W3C data, Linux, and increasingly Google's Android flavor of Linux, is making a big push on smartphones.

To fuel this, Google has been upping its commitment to developers, most recently with an upgrade to its Android Market, but also pushing its handsets into an ever-widening array of handset manufacturers and wireless carriers, most recently Sprint.

I've suggested that the only way to beat Apple's iPhone is with a big commitment of resources. Google appears to be doing this, but in an intelligent way: it is trying to attract a wide community of developers to share the burden of beating the iPhone.

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister thinks it's not working, but I'm more sanguine. So long as Google invests marketing and development resources to Android, the open-source operating platform has a good chance.

And, importantly, so long as Google remains committed to mobile, there's a very good opportunity for other mobile open-source players to draft on its momentum. An entire open-source industry has grown up in the shadow of IBM's original $1 billion commitment to Linux.

The same can happen in mobile, and this time it will be Google's turn to lead.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[ewriter21]

You are correct that corporate involvement tends to be an ingredient in mainstreaming open source. I'd suggest even your Apache and Mozilla examples had such support.

Even Apache had corporate support, just not in the usual way. Apache's http server was bundled with most Unixes, corporation backed Linux distributions and even NetWare back when it was new and relatively unknown. That use and awareness spilled over to people looking for it for use on Windows as well since it wasn't going to get bundled there.

Mozilla benefited from Netscape, the corporation, paving the road and winning hearts and minds for an alternate browser. A lot of corporations had bundled Netscape with various products in the early days as well. Usually with a TCP/IP stack and tool suite but sometimes with less obvious products.

[sting7k]

I wish US carriers would carry more Android phones. Not going back to Tmobile.

[pentest]

I guess people don't care about the spyware built into Google's third rate products.

Of course it takes corporate backing for OSS to become mainstream. The US population is largely comprised of corporate slaves. Which is why the best product/service rarely wins.

[calculatorwatch]

i think the big challenge for android is going to be marketing. The concept of android is easy for a tech minded person to understand and appreciate but when it comes to the average consumer it it will be difficult. The mass market doesn't seem to think about phones by their OSs but rather by features, hardware, and brand names. Google has the brand name but i think people don't see google as a software company but as an internet company, and most just don't see the connection between google and Andriod. And the fact that a lot of the the handset makers are putting different skins on top of android is exciting to tech people but just furthers the confusion for most and helps isolate the different handsets from eachother. The point is, google and it's partners have a lot of work to do to get the average consumer to be able to tell their friends "i got an android phone" and have it understood as easily as "i got an iphone" or "i got a blackberry".

The first step, i think, is to give android a reputation for a characteristic that everyone understands (i.e. not "open source") and don't associate as much with other phones. For instance blackberries are about being connected, windows mobile is about being powerful, and the iphone is about the internet and being cool. The new t-mobile commercial is all about how you can customize the MT3G, so maybe google and it's partners could try to make all android phones about customization and individuality.

You should also check out the new Nokia n900 phone with its Maemo operating system. Maemo is a derivative of Debian, an open source operating system on the desktop.

[ian.waring]

I'd buy an HTC Hero running Android Cupcake if I could get one on my UK Vodafone contract, but try as much as I do every week, no-one knows if/when I can buy this - short of shelling out over $600 for my own handset. Exclusives are harming Google...