Google's take over of your internet connected devices is now becoming more clear. The are taking a multi-pronged approach targeting mobile, netbooks, tablets, laptops and PC's.
Android 2.0 is now released on the largest cellular carrier (Verizon) in the US and I fully expect Android to take over the iPhone in just a few years. Why am I so confident that the number of Android supported cell phones will out number iPhones in a short period of time considering the current iPhone lead? The answer is openness and applications.
Google is making a smart move by making Android hardware agnostic and not limiting what devices may run the OS. Just like Windows, Android may run on a whole slew of devices produced by numerous manufacturers. Whereas Apple's mobile OS only runs on a few selected devices (iPhone and iPod Touch). It was recently announced that several new devices will be running Google's Android OS, including a
tablet PC from Vega, a
e-book readers to compete with Amazon's Kindle and a
netbook from Acer. Expect more and new types of devices to come in the future. I can imagine Android to show up in your TV, in your GPS, and in your car soon.
The slew of new Android devices will demand the attention of developers. Developers and creators of applications will gravitate towards the platform where their applications will be sold and used the most. Also, with Apple's big brother attitude over applications, why would a developer risk their application being rejected? There is less risk writing applications for an open platform like Android. Just like the gaming console wars and the OS wars, the winner of a platform is the one that has the most popular applications.
Also, it is now unofficially released that the
Google Chrome OS will be launching within a week. Google's Chrome OS is initially intended for less powerful netbooks and laptops (in fact it may even compete with Android) and will be competing head-to-head with Microsoft. Of course netbooks and small laptops is currently the fast growing segment in the PC market.
I'm not convinced that the Chrome OS will have as big of an impact in the PC market as Android has in the mobile market. Microsoft will not let go of its grasp of PC's very easily. However of all the options available to the netbooks, Google has the best shot of nudging Microsoft from its podium a little bit.
I believe that when people look back to find when the time was that Google started jump out of the internet into hardware, the answer will be in late 2009 into early 2010.
What are your thoughts?
Labels: Android, Apple, Chrome, Google, iPhone