The Open Road

For all the discussion of the importance of transparency and openness on the Web today, it's very telling that the world's fastest-growing mobile platform may also be the most proprietary.

Apple wins rave reviews (including from me) on its technology but certainly not for its commitment to sharing its innovations with the world...unless, of course, you fork over $299 and sign a two-year mobile service commitment.

Indeed, Apple has earned the dubious honor of being more closed than Microsoft.

And yet, as Marc Hedlund reveals over on the O'Reilly Radar, application growth for the iPhone dwarfs that of the former leader in the smartphone category, PalmOS:

iPhone OS app growth vs. PalmOS app growth

(Credit: Marc Hedlund)

If openness matters so much, why is Apple doing so well with its uber-proprietary iPhone, just as Microsoft dominates the desktop with proprietary Windows?

There are at least two answers. One is that while Apple's iPhone (like Microsoft's Windows) isn't open in the open-source sense, it is open in the sense that it's easy to create applications that run on it. The second reason is that there's a huge financial incentive to do so, given the momentum behind the platform.

For some, these reasons aren't good enough, such as Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker:

Many of us participate in closed systems where the rules are set for us and we don't see them, certainly can't change them, and aren't permitted to "participate" in building the rules. This is true of very popular web services. For example, I "participate" in Flickr and Facebook, but within the system and rules that those organizations set up to meet their own goals. That's fine; there's no reason for those sites to change.

Mozilla is trying to build a layer of the Internet that's different, where "participation" extends to the very core of what we build.

With 40 percent of Mozilla's Firefox written by outside contributors, it's clear that an open platform works for Mozilla to build a better browser, which is why Mozilla continues to improve the ways in which developers can contribute to it. But it's equally clear that there are other ways to be "open to participation," ways that pay the rent for Apple, Microsoft, and huge ecosystems of commercial partners.

Is one platform approach better than another?

While it's clear that the world has room for both proprietary-but-open-enough and pureplay-open approaches to platform building, I favor the more open approach. The reason is that eventually, it appears proprietary approaches can collapse under their own weight.

Take Windows, for example. To maintain its growth, Microsoft has had to include more and more functionality in the operating system, stepping on the toes (or outright devouring the toes) of its erstwhile partners. (Interestingly, while discussing whether openness matters for Apple over Google Android, Slate describes Microsoft's Windows approach as open.)

Eventually, Windows grew to such heft that the market, including Microsoft partners, started looking for open alternatives, causing then Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to dub Linux Microsoft's "most potent operating system competitor." The "good enough" operating system that performed certain tasks much more efficiently and powerfully than Windows has now grown to seriously threaten Microsoft in a range of applications and markets.

Eventually, even Microsoft's desktop dominance may be threatened by Linux as new classes of easy-to-use, cost-effective devices like Netbooks arise.

Back to Apple. Today, Apple's iPhone seems set to rule the world because it enables a huge community of application developers to reach a paying audience. Tomorrow, however, Google (Android/Linux), Nokia (Symbian, Linux), Palm (WebOS/Linux), and even Microsoft (Windows Mobile) threaten its cozy corralling of the mobile market.

Microsoft has made it clear that it's possible to build a massive business with an "open enough" approach to platform development. The question is, can Microsoft (and Apple) maintain that without truly opening up?

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Should Microsoft buy the maker of the Palm Pre?

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

Slate's Farhad Manjoo offers an interesting suggestion for Microsoft: forget Yahoo, buy Palm.

What's most puzzling about the possibility of renewed merger talks [between Microsoft and Yahoo] is that in betting on Yahoo, Microsoft would be jumping deeper into a volatile business that is outside its area of expertise. Microsoft really has no business being in the business of advertising. It is a software company, and software remains an astonishingly lucrative market. So why does it want to sell ads?...

Buying Yahoo would solve none of Microsoft's software woes--and could likely make them worse if Ballmer spends resources fixing what's wrong with Yahoo rather than fixing what's wrong with Windows Mobile....Microsoft might pay tens of billions of dollars for Yahoo; it could pick up Palm instead for just $1 billion or $2 billion and then spend several hundred million more on transforming the Pre's user interface into a mobile OS that can run on phones made by multiple vendors. Microsoft would also gain a loyal Palm audience--and a base of developers looking to create apps for the device.

This is sage advice, and helps Microsoft compete in a massive market that it largely misses today. Wouldn't Microsoft rather own the world's next desktop, mobile? Isn't that a smarter bet for its skillsets than getting into the Web advertising business?

Ironically, Apple is pulling a Microsoft even as Microsoft fritters away its time on beating Google at the Google advertising game. The iPhone App Store is absolutely rocking, as Businessweek reports, pulling in tens of thousands of applications that make customers increasingly happy to pay for Apple's iconic iPhone mobile device. Sound familiar? This has been Microsoft's game plan on the desktop for decades.

Microsoft would be better able to withstand a potential Apple lawsuit related to the Palm Pre. Microsoft would be better able to counter Apple's increasingly deep pockets as it continues to nail its quarterly earnings.

In so many ways, Microsoft would prove an adept competitor to Apple in mobile, just as adept a competitor as it is not against Google in advertising. Why? Because Microsoft knows developer communities and platforms and operating systems. It doesn't know anything about Web advertising.

There's just one small nit in this master plan: Palm runs Linux. Yes, Microsoft would have to get over that. But given how weak Windows Mobile has been, maybe Linux looks pretty good to the Redmond giant right about now.

I'm a big Apple fan, but I'll admit that I'm hoping that Palm's new Pre device, glowingly reviewed by Dan Lyons in Newsweek, will dent Apple's iPhone fortunes.

Not forever, mind you. I just want Apple to have to compete again. Like Microsoft with Office and Windows, Apple too often can take its fan base for granted now.

You don't agree? Consider some obvious features that Apple has stubbornly resisted including in its iPhone updates: copy-and-paste, ability to run multiple applications simultaneously, etc.

Some of this functionality I left behind when I dumped the Blackberry a year ago, but I always assumed Apple would get around to adding it, sooner rather than later.

Wrong.

Since Apple hasn't listened to its customers, perhaps it will listen to its competitors. Everything I've read about the Palm Pre suggests that it's an exceptional device, its primary fault being that Apple didn't create it. That's not going to be a compelling differentiator forever, however long it has buoyed the iPod against competitors.

For now, I'm sticking with my iPhone. But I'm hoping that enough people will buy the Pre to crimp Apple's style, forcing it to innovate a little faster. Just as Apple is pushing Microsoft to revisit desktop innovation, so, too, is it appropriate that Palm should give Apple some uncomfortable competition in mobile.

Elevation Partners is dumping another $100 million into Palm, the erstwhile leader in mobile computing, as The Wall Street Journal reports. This seems like such an obvious case of throwing good money after bad that it's almost unfathomable.

Palm is all but dead. I don't relish this fact, but there it is. There used to be two groups on the planet that persisted in using Palm devices: Zack Urlocker and Red Hat employees. Zack, because he's a retro sort of "if it works why switch?" sort of guy, and Red Hat because its internal IT policies were long dominated by one primary question: "Will it work with Linux?"

Well, Red Hat has a Blackberry-wielding CEO and my recent visit to the Raleigh and Buenos Aires campuses showed more iPhones than Palm Treos. Zack? Well, I think 2009 may be the year that Zack folds.

The rest of the industry, however, already has. Palm lost. It's a classic case of the industry innovator being hoisted on its own petard. It was out-innovated and out-marketed by Apple and Research in Motion. Sure, it could come back from the dead, as Apple did, but I wouldn't be betting on it. Certainly not $100 million.

Sure, Elevation Partners' Bono could sing "It's too late tonight to drag the past out into the light," but this is real investor cash, not simply a song. Palm's song is sung.

Palm may not have much of an appetite for Google's Android platform for mobile phones, but Motorola definitely does.

Reports in Top Tech News and elsewhere suggest that Motorola is looking to hire hundreds of Google Android developers. Indeed, a quick search of Motorola's job openings suggests that, indeed, Android is set to become a permanent fixture at Motorola, which has long built Linux-based phones but hitherto used MontaVista's Mobilinux.

The goal? Move from an internal development pool of 50 Android-savvy developers to 350.

Motorola, recognizing that most developers won't have deep experience with Google Android, is looking for a somewhat general skillset, as this job posting for a Principal Engineer suggests:

We are looking for an Application Developer to work on new client applications and services for Motorola phones based on the Google Android platform. Main responsibilities will include programming in Java, designing and documenting feature implementation plans, and general troubleshooting.

"Java and Google Android programming experience" is listed as "highly desirable," but not required.

Given that many of Motorola's problems stem from product marketing - figuring out which handsets to build - and brand marketing - actually making consumers want to buy the handsets - this attempt may not be enough. Motorola's biggest problem isn't its technology platform: few prospective buyers care what software the phone is running. Motorola may be making a big bet on a platform that won't materially change its own inability of late to build compelling phones.

Fortune makes the suggestion that Palm should focus on Google's Android mobile operating platform, and then ZDNet follows with a question, "Should Palm drop their Linux plans and embrace Android?"

The answer is "Yes." An emphatic "Yes."

Fortune writes:

...[I]t may be time for a drastic change of strategy. If Android is all it's cracked up to be, Palm may be better off scrapping its OS plans, and throwing in with Google instead....

Certainly, Palm would be taking a risk by betting on Android. Any embrace of Google would bring the wrath of Microsoft, which could make it more difficult for Palm to produce its most profitable handsets, its Windows Mobile-based Treos.

It really doesn't matter if Android is "all it's cracked up to be." It also doesn't matter if Microsoft doesn't like it. Palm isn't exactly thriving with Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform (nor is Microsoft, for that matter). Palm is a walking corpse and needs to associate with living, breathing human beings again.

Android lets Palm bet big on the future. Windows Mobile is a bet on an operating system that has failed to make much of a dent on the market in its 10 years of struggling to do so. Palm was right to bet on Linux two years ago, but it has done little with the strategy. It's time to try its luck with Google. Android is no panacea, but it's better than popping Advil while its arms, legs, and neck get amputated by the market.

It's only when I talk with Zack Urlocker or Red Hat employees that I'm reminded that Palm is still in business. They seem to be the only ones still lugging around Palm Treos.

In Red Hat's case, it's because the Palm Treo works fairly well with Linux. As for Zack...? No clue, except that Zack isn't one to spend money on disposable liabilities.

With Red Hat's roughly 2,200 employees, plus Zack, Palm has a total addressable market of 2,201 people with its new Treo Pro.

Unfortunately, Palm has yet to find a US wireless provider to carry the Treo Pro. More unfortunately, it will run Windows, so only Zack is left as a potential customer. Zack is the "Avery Wong" of mobile phones:

(Credit: UPS, Inc. Courtesy of Agfa)

Palm has apparently started a new marketing campaign for the Treo Pro: "Early and often, Avery Urlocker. Early and often."

I was reading through the Wall Street Journal and stumbled across this amazing piece of news: Palm still exists! As proof, the company has released a new Treo.

Remember the Treo?

It used to be the "it" device, the one you just had to have. Now? Well, now it's the device that you get if you've been living in Antarctica and have been talking with penguins for far too long.

Palm's sense of timing hasn't changed. A day after Apple announced that it sold over one million 3G iPhones in its opening weekend (the last iPhone took 74 days to reach that milestone), Palm announced that it had introduced yet another device for the market to ignore.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the Treo is a bad device. I used to swear by mine. But the mobile market is fickle, because consumers are fickle. Gadgets have become disposable: I have two Blackberrys down in my kids' toy chest.

But even they don't want to use them as toys anymore. They want iPhones.

Palm is better off finding niche categories where the iPhone and Blackberry are unlikely to go. Like, um...OK. I can't think of any reason to use one. That's the problem.