Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 5th Nov 2007 21:36 UTC, submitted by irbis
Google and 33 other companies have announced an ambitious industry alliance that will maintain a completely open source mobile phone stack. The Open Handset Alliance says phones based on its Linux-based 'Android' stack will reach market in as soon as eight months. The Android stack is based on 'open Linux kernel', the group says. It also includes a full set of mobile phone application software, in order to "significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services", OHA said.
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Member since:
2006-01-06
I've gotta applaud your enthusiasm and desire to open up the phone stack; HOWEVER, let me be the first one to tell you that you're wasting your time. In order to get any significant distribution, you have to do a deal with the major mobile telcos. Apple found out the hard way. It had to partner with AT&T in order to sell its iPhones. AT&T forced Apple into greatly crimping the openness of the iPhone architecture, and the reason is simple: The mobile telcos want to own a piece of the entire mobile ecosystem (the packet networks, the protocols, the applications, the ringtones, the wallpaper, everything. They don't want to open up the entire architecture and become marginalized like Internet ISPs. Why? Because Internet ISPs are nothing more than cables, routers, and switches. They don't add any more value than that. They don't own a piece of the commerce that flows over their cables. But mobile telcos DO. Unlike ISPs, they get paid by the minute. And they're NOT going to be willing to open up the phone architecture and allow themselves to be pushed aside like ISPs.
So, in summary, it's a noble effort but, ultimately, it's doomed to obsolescence unless you change the fundamental way that wireless phone networks are administered. Don't expect mobile telcos to cooperate, either. They would be slitting their own throats by embracing any of this -- don't kid yourself -- and they know it.
[TO THE folks who mod down this post simply on the basis that you disagree with its contents: You're small, petty dorks -- and you will always be small, petty dorks]
Edited 2007-11-06 20:53 UTC