November 18th, 2009

Google-Microsoft rivalry on with ChromeOS launch

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:04 am

Categories: General, Google, Internet, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Laptop, Microsoft, Strategy, marketing

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, ChromeOS, Chrome, Linux, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Web Browsers, Operating Systems, UNIX

The daily competition between Google and Microsoft becomes ever-more direct this week, with Google hosting a demo of its ChromeOS tomorrow, right after Microsoft’s Professional Development conference.

ChromeOS is Google’s version of Linux for netbooks, much as Android is its Linux for handhelds. It is a version of Bill Gates’ nightmares from 15 years ago, as Netscape was rising, visions that led directly to the case of U.S. vs. Microsoft.

Microsoft got through that crisis unscathed in a corporate sense, but its image was transformed from that of a user-friendly upstart to that of “an implacable force for evil,” as one comedy show said recently, exemplified by the famous Boardwatch cover of Bill Gates as a member of the Borg, the Star Trek bad guys.

The fear, old programming hands will tell you, was that Netscape would turn its Mozilla browser into a full-fledged operating system that, because of its dominance of the browser space, could beat Windows in the market.

Chrome is a lot like that. It is centered on the browser, which abstracts the complexity of Linux from the user. And it’s designed to load fast, a real Achilles Heel for Windows on a netbook. An early version could be available for download next week.

When you’re paying $300 for your machine, you don’t want to wait 10 minutes for the thing to start, and you don’t want to be paying a lot for your software, either. ChromeOS is designed to fix both problems, so I am looking forward to it.

The hope is that the industry which supports ChromeOS will make up in services what it loses in up-front fees. And Google will be able to tie all its online services to ChromeOS, increasing its market share in areas like Mail where it is not yet dominant.

So, Mr. Bill, is resistance futile?

November 17th, 2009

Five ways Android could get into trouble

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 7:43 am

Categories: General, Google, Hardware, Linux, Linux Handheld, telecom, wireless

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Android, Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Dana Blankenhorn

On the surface these are happy days in Android-land.

Going into the key Christmas selling season, Android is eating Windows for lunch. New (non-Google) development centers are continuing to open, new manufacturers are coming on stream.

What could possibly go wrong?

Knowing that rising markets need a wall of worry to keep going up, here are some possibilities:

1. Momentum must be maintained. Once you start gobbling market share you have to keep doing it. Even a slowing of momentum can be read as failure.
2. Developers must be kept happy. Some are complaining they’re working full-time getting apps written for the Android operating system running on multiple phones.
3. The Android app store has some catching-up to do, especially in the user experience area.
4. When will Android get a “killer app” that the iPhone can’t match, or one it hasn’t already matched?
5. Can Google ride herd on its complex ecosystem? Everyone knows who the boss is with the iPhone. Not so with Android. (UPDATE: Rich Sands writes to say this article from his site is more to the point.)

We shouldn’t get too excited about Android’s early success. A 3.5% market share is still a gnat on Apple’s elephant. Early buzz does not make for victory — as President Howard Dean will tell you. (Or President Huckabee, if you prefer.)

Google has set itself a more complex task than that which faced Apple when it introduced the iPhone a few years ago. Google is using an open source approach, which means there are more hands on the steering wheel. And Google is trying to overcome an established leader, leading to charges of me-tooism.

A good start is not the race.

November 16th, 2009

Montavista embedded Linux eaten by Cavium

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:33 am

Categories: Distributions, General, Hardware, Implementations, Linux, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Chip, MontaVista, Cavium, LinuxPundit Bill Weinberg, Embedded Linux, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Dana Blankenhorn

Embedded Linux is proprietary by its nature.

Expressing software inside a chip, then selling the chip, gives embedded Linux a business model, but that business model is tied closely to the success of the chip being sold.

So as chip makers have turned to Linux to power their new designs they have bought the software houses that pushed embedded Linux. Intel bought Wind River and now Cavium has bought Montavista.

LinuxPundit Bill Weinberg is troubled by this, but not for the reason you think. Very few of these companies are left now, and those are very small. But Weinberg is concerned more that Montavista failed to bag the really big bucks it was seeking at its founding 10 years ago.

What embedded Linux means for users and software developers is that there are open source on-chip tools you can write to and use for building bigger applications. Who controls the embedded Linux company is less important than that it succeed.

Cavium is considered a “start-up” networking chip company, but it’s doing some cool and interesting stuff.

This month Cavium showed a networked high-definition WiFi design, dubbed netHD, that can move 1080 HD feeds around your home on an 802.11n set-up. It’s working with Hitachi on “security processors” and drives the latest Netgear firewall. Despite continuing losses stock buyers have bid the company up to $850 million.

One can argue that, while Montavista hoped to sell for more, its investors are now getting a taste of a fast-growing proposition. And their success, Cavium’s success, will be open source’s success as well.

NOTE: My apologies to those who like to engage in flame wars here, for delivering a story that contains nothing but good news. How about this….Microsoft! (Stallman?)

November 13th, 2009

Groklaw suggests Microsoft sue, do over authentication

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:05 am

Categories: General, Government, Legal, Linux, Microsoft, Patents

Tags: Patent, Prior Art, Lawyer, Microsoft Corp., Software Patent, Authentication, Groklaw, Dana Blankenhorn

Microsoft has won a patent that seems to cover an old Unix authentication scheme known as Sudo.

(Your honor, I would like to offer this t-shirt of XKCD’s classic comic as evidence prior art. Mark it as Exhibit A for the defense.)

Groklaw is using the case to argue against software patents, and in favor of the government in the Supreme Court case Bilsky vs. Kappos, in which oral arguments were heard last week.

Advocates of free software have used the case to urge the courts to eliminate software patents, although the appellate court In Re Bilski only limited them. Groklaw may hope the utter bogusity of the sudo patent will prod the Supremes to sing the song their way.

One might also argue, however, that the case argues for better funding at the patent office, and patent examiners with an understanding of prior art.

The Unix version of Sudo (pronounced sue-doo) is freeware. (Red Hat attorneys are probably thinking just that of Microsoft’s lawyers right about now. Oh sue, do.)

The patent describes how Microsoft does Sudo through a program called Runas, but then adds this:

Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms of implementing the claimed invention.

This is lawyer speak for Clint Eastwood telling the bad guy, “feeling lucky, punk?” To which Linux lawyers might respond, “Go ahead. Make my day.”

My apologies for the puns. The whole issue makes me feel dirty, Harry.

November 12th, 2009

Broadcom goes open source and hell freezes over

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:22 am

Categories: GPL, General, Hardware, Linux, Linux Handheld, Strategy, VOIP, mobile, telecom, wireless

Tags: Broadcom Corp., Linux, Branding, Open Source, Sales Strategy, Operating Systems, Software, Marketing, Sales, Dana Blankenhorn

When the rock group Eagles broke up in 1980 they said they would get back together “when hell froze over.” They did get back together, in 1994. The album was called Hell Freezes Over.

Point is you can promise you will never do something — never, ever, ever — but business is business.

It’s with this in mind we find Broadcom making its BroadVoice voice codecs open source and royalty free under GPL V. 2.

GigaOM is wondering whether Broadcom isn’t just pushing for higher priced, higher quality voice from service providers using the codecs. I have another theory.

Broadcom saw its greatest success in pioneering relationships with Taiwanese OEMs. When other chip companies were offering these firms software and ecosystems, Broadcom offered them solutions, complete designs from brand names they could bang out for a quick profit.

What I saw at CompuTex this year was an enormous interest from these OEMs, whose ties to Chinese manufacturing are incredibly strong, to go “up the stack” of value, to own their own designs and create their own brand names.

They see this as an impossible dream on the desktop, but very possible in the handset business, a Broadcom niche. Systems like Android, LiMo and Symbian are open source, so the components going into them should also be open source. It’s the most effective way to compete with Apple.

In taking this route, the OEMs are explicitly rejecting Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and this is a very big deal. This has nothing to do with the sales world they desire. They gave Microsoft all of the Netbook market and stuck Linux in a corner.

This Broadcom announcement is the best proof yet that the future of the handheld market is Linux.

November 11th, 2009

Linux to your grandma this Christmas

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:38 am

Categories: Distributions, General, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, business models, marketing

Tags: Grandma, British Broadcasting Corp., Valerie Singleton, Linux, UNIX, Operating Systems, Productivity, Open Source, Software, Dana Blankenhorn

It’s really just another demonstration of what Linux can do.

It started with a BBC story and quickly became an Internet detective piece.

(If you recognize this picture you’re either a middle-aged Brit or a trivia expert. The lady at the center is the entry point for what follows. She is shown in her mid-1960s heyday hosting the BBC children’s show Blue Peter.)

According to the BBC former children’s presenter  Valerie Singleton (center at right), now running a Web site of discounts for seniors, got together with a small computer store chain recently to offer a PC for older folks who’ve never touched one before.

On start-up users could first see a video from Ms. Singleton, demonstrating the basics, then face six big buttons for applications that are all built-in.

A BBC reviewer called it both patronizing and expensive, but the 80 year-old computing newbie he brought with him appreciated the gentle learning curve. We all know so much, even kids know so much, about computing, that going back to a time when it was all new is hard to conceive. But for some that’s reality.

Then came the detective work. I wanted to verify what the BBC was saying, after all.

• Singleton’s Discount Age makes no mention of the offer on its home page — you have to go inside.
• The man credited by the BBC as the designer makes no mention of the offer on his own blog — he’s drinking in sorrow over turning 42.
• The computer store is a billboard site.
• The help site referenced in the story makes no mention of the offer.
• There is a Linux called Simplicity, which released a new version last month, but it’s apparently no relation to what Singleton is trying to do.  (Simplicity Linux focuses on making old hardware useful.)

Turns out all this is a sales channel. Valerie Singleton, her site, the computer store, the designer, they’re all acting as a channel for Eldy, an Italian outfit which offers a Linux interface based upon Linux Mint, focused on the needs of old newbies.

Which means our detective story has become A Christmas Carol.

Let’s say you have a grandma, or grandpa, here in the U.S., who has never used a computer, claims not to care, but whom you know is just blustering because they don’t know the first thing of what to do.

Check out Eldy. They have a nice slide show on their home page demonstrating the features and benefits of the software.

Then, if you like, download Eldy to whatever hardware you have, load it on an old laptop, and spring it on them for your Christmas visit, sitting by their side as they learn it.

They won’t have Ms. Singleton, but your American grandma likely doesn’t know Valerie Singleton from Adam’s Off Ox.

Once grandma gets the hang of things, they can turn off the Eldy interface and have a solid, basic Linux to work with. They’ll be programming rings around you by Easter.

Who says Santa Claus has to have a long, white beard, or that he only cares about the needs of children? We’re all children — you, me, Valerie Singleton, and your grandma — inside.

Help one this Christmas.

November 4th, 2009

LiMo has a second phone

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:58 am

Categories: General, Hardware, Linux Handheld, mass market, mobile, wireless

Tags: Vodafone Group Plc., Phone, LiMo Foundation, Mobile, Handset, Advertising & Promotion, Cellular Phones, Telecom & Utilities, Marketing, Consumer Electronics

The LiMo Foundation has delivered its second mobile phone to the market under the second release of its software.

The Vodafone 360 Samsung M1 looks uncomfortably like an iPhone, only with three buttons below the screen. The name is a hybrid — Vodafone 360 refers to the carrier’s service platform, Samsung M1 the phone manufacturer.

And it’s the Vodafone 360 that is at the heart of it all. The company calls this its “web services strategy.” Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless of the U.S.

Version 2.0 of the LiMo platform was announced in September alongside another Samsung phone, the H1. While Android stories revolve around developers and phone makers, LiMo seems proudest of its agreements with carriers.

The M1 itself seems to be a dumbed-down version of the H1, with less memory, a smaller screen, and presumably a lower price. It seems the idea is to hit the low-end of the market with something that looks like an iPhone, but isn’t, and a network that seems like the Internet, but isn’t.

LiMo press announcements also tend to carry a breathless quality that hasn’t been seen in America since the 1980s, except among recent college graduates. Here’s a taste:

This latest handset developed by Samsung offers mobile consumers a unique mobile experience presented through Vodafone’s stunning feature-rich, highly customizable Vodafone 360 user interface (UI) – providing a new set of Internet services for the mobile and PC that gathers all of a customer’s friends, communities, entertainment and personal favorites in one place.

You would think these people invented the handset.

Snark aside we are starting to see the dimensions of contrasting strategies among the various Linux handset groups. Android is about the makers, LiMo the carriers, and Moblin the developers.

Which will win the customers?

October 29th, 2009

Qualcomm joins open source movement at head of parade

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 7:38 am

Categories: Development, General, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Linux Laptop, mass market, mobile, telecom, wireless

Tags: Open Source Movement, Qualcomm Inc., Matt Asay, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Qualcomm, which has long had a major position in mobile chip sets and standards, has joined the open source movement with an eye to leading it. (Picture from Whenpigsfly.info.)

The company formed a new unit called Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), under a senior vice president, and it joined the board of directors of the Symbian Foundation.

The idea behind the QuIC is to push open source, including systems like Chrome, Webkit and Android as well as Symbian, the company said.

Qualcomm is doing this to support its Snapdragon chip set, a CPU and graphics chip package designed for low power and handheld devices, most based on Linux. These include what Qualcomm calls “smartbooks,” netbook-phone hybrids on which Chinese manufacturers like Acer, Asus and HTC are already working.

The move should also be seen in light of recent moves by Intel to support mobile open source. Matt Asay writes that “pigs are beginning to fly” and he’s right.

But where are they heading?

The efforts of Qualcomm surrounding Snapdragon seem to prove that the “waiting for Godot” story of “desktop Linux” may finally get an appearance by its title character appearing on the stage in the form of a telephone-laptop hybrid.

But open source advocates should also take a jaundiced view of this, not just because it has been delayed for years. As Matt notes, combining open source and proprietary technology in the way Qualcomm wants to do, while legitimate, does threaten to maintain the vendor lock-in that open source is meant to fight.

Just because you draw a picture does not mean the pig is really flying.

October 29th, 2009

Ubuntu Karmic Koala launches

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:00 am

Categories: Cloud Computing, Distributions, GPL, General, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS

Tags: Ubuntu, Server, Server Version, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Desktops, Hardware, Dana Blankenhorn

Ubuntu 9:10, known as Karmic Koala, has officially been launched at Ubuntu.

Correction The original story incorrectly identified reviews for the release candidate of Ubuntu 9.10 as being for the final version of Ubuntu 9.10.

It comes in desktop and server editions, which have been getting wildly different reviews.

Reviews on the release candidate of the desktop version are negative, due to the fact you can’t run multiple drives with the current code base. This means a netbook user may be happy but a desktop user (my desktop has three hard drives) will not be satisfied at all.

The server version is getting stronger reviews thanks to its support for clouds. By using Eucalyptus the company has a decent cloud implementation that should make it more competitive with Red Hat, at least in Europe. (Canonical offices are close to the European mainland.)

Drop your own experiences with the new Ubuntu into the talkback thread below. We’ll be waiting.

October 27th, 2009

Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:50 am

Categories: Distributions, General, Linux Server OS, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions, support

Tags: OpenSolaris, Oracle Corp., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

With Apple having followed through on its promise to dump the  ZFS file system, and Oracle still preparing to take over Sun any time now, we should consider the future of the technology, and perhaps the OpenSolaris operating system it rides on.

OpenSolaris was Sun’s attempt to secure a future for what had been its proprietary Unix. It has some advantages over Linux, on which its advocates will gladly bend your ear over a couple of beers.

But there’s a curious thing about technical advantages in the age of open source. They don’t matter as much as they once did. After all, if open source can compete with proprietary products that have decades’ head start and armies of programmers behind them, how big is an open source program’s technical details?

Open source has taught some hard lessons.

It’s pretty clear that the programming of a few little features don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy software world. Oracle has its Unbreakable Linux program in which it has invested heavily. Does it really make sense for Oracle to keep carrying OpenSolaris, or is it time for Larry Ellison to tell it, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and just walk away?

Best movie ever? You decide at Amazon.com.

October 26th, 2009

Ubuntu celebrates Thursday drop of koala desktop and server

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 12:53 pm

Categories: Cloud Computing, Distributions, General, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Laptop, Linux Server OS, marketing, virtualization

Tags: Ubuntu, Server, GNOME 2.28, Desktops, Hardware, Dana Blankenhorn

Ubuntu held a teleconference this afternoon to celebrate the Thursday launch of its new desktop and server edition, karmic koala.

The new desktop is built around “Ubuntu One,”a collection of backup, note and contact synchronization and file-sharing services integrated into the operating system, offering 2 Gigabytes of free storage and more by subscription.

The Firefox 3.5 browser and improved audio support are also part of the offering. GNOME 2.28 is the shipping desktop interface.

On the server side the situation is more cloudy, but in a good way with the addition of full support for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, from Eucalyptus Systems, that lets you create your own mini-cloud based on open source. The clouds feature host and guest virtualization under KVM and guest virtualization under Xen.

Most new features were previewed in April.

A complete online tour of the new desktop is already online. A list of supported netbooks is available, but the company is suggesting you pack a thumb drive with its Ubuntu Netbook Remix when you go to the store, just to make sure. Should make Friday at Fry’s fun.

October 26th, 2009

Why Android is beating Windows Mobile

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:48 am

Categories: Apple, General, Google, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Microsoft, business models, mass market, mobile

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Apple Inc., Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Corp., Games, Mobile Operating Systems, Advertising & Promotion, Smart Phones

Most analysts have it wrong. It’s not about a balance of power and it’s not about Google becoming what Sun promised to be and it’s certainly not about that dread word free.

It’s about the game that the two companies are playing. Google is playing, and Microsoft is not. (Here, one of the 16 “masterpieces” in the dogs playing poker series, from Wikipedia.)

With Google Android you see where all your competitors start from. You can innovate from there. You can differentiate your phone from other Android phones.

With Microsoft there is less wiggle room. The only people who see the code are Microsoft and (maybe) the manufacturer. You are betting that Microsoft can out-innovate Apple. (Stop laughing.)

No one in the mobile business throught Apple could out-innovate Apple back in the day. Remember when Apple was playing footsie with Motorola? No one in the mobile business thought Apple had what it took to be a “lead dog” — they all wanted it in harness with an unchanging view.

So Apple did its own phone, its own way, and Apple won.

Microsoft lacks the courage to do this. It won’t compete with its own ecosystem. It doesn’t understand that hardware is software. So it plays the game the way Symbian did five years ago, even though Symbian has abandoned that game, so there is no reason to fear Microsoft, and no “there” there.

The days of control are over, unless you’re willing to bet big. Apple did, and wound up playing Monopoly on its own design. What’s Microsoft playing, Blind Man’s Bluff?

By contrast, think of Google as dealing hands of poker.

All the players at the Android table can see one anothers’ cards. Not all the cards, but enough to get a feel for what’s happening. They can keep their aces in the hole, they can innovate or compete in some other way.

The dealer is patient, you can play all day, and guess who ends up with most of the chips at the end of play?

The dealer.

Google is betting that carriers and manufacturers will play enough hands with it that it can gain some market share. Right now that looks like a pretty good bet.

Microsoft is like a gambler with a fistful of dollars that can’t find the game.

October 23rd, 2009

Give Jim Whitehurst his due and proper

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 8:01 am

Categories: General, Linux, Linux Server OS, Red Hat, management

Tags: Super Bowl, Red Hat Inc., Jim Whitehurst, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

One of the hardest, and underestimated, jobs in business is to take over a going concern and keep it growing.

Examples are few. Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers comes to mind. It’s not broke, don’t fix it, just find a few ways to make it a little bit better and you can win a Super Bowl.

In football building on success gives a coach his “props,” or proper respect. In Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer it’s referred to as one’s “due and proper.”

In the world of open source Jim Whitehurst is a like Tomlin. Critics called Tomlin too young. They called Whitehurst “the airline guy” when he joined Red Hat from Delta Air Lines in 2008.

As with the Steelers Red Hat wasn’t broke when Whitehurst came in, and they’re just keeping on. The had another good quarter, the stock has more than doubled in value this year, and the market cap is now over $5 billion.

Whitehurst has done this with the business equivalent of blocking and tackling. Red Hat has no trick plays, no wildcat offense. For the fifth time (in six years) it topped all software vendors in CIO’s annual survey. That’s a bit like winning the Super Bowl, isn’t it?

I’m sure Whitehurst was asked, at his recent keynote to a business leadership conference named in part for Duke basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski, “how do you do it? How do you get people to pay you for something they can get for free?”

The answer was probably the same as it is for every other successful open source vendor. You help people make the code work and get value from it. Free code is just code. Supported code is a business result. Red Hat is results oriented.

The bottom line doesn’t lie folks. Use this thread to give the man his due and proper.

October 21st, 2009

Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora Linux updates prepped as Win7 release nears

Posted by Paula Rooney @ 7:37 am

Categories: FOSS, General, Linux Desktop OS, Microsoft

Tags: Ubuntu, Fedora Project, SuSE, IBM Corp., Linux, Open Source, UNIX, Operating Systems, E-mail, Web Browsers

As Microsoft gets set to launch Windows 7,  Linux desktop vendors are trying to make some waves.

Yesterday, IBM and Canonical announced availability of a cloud and Linux-based business desktop alternative for existing PCs or low cost netbooks.

The IBM Client for Smart Work package , which was first introduced in Africa last month, runs Canonical’s Ubuntu and IBM’s Lotus Symphony office suite, Lotus Notes e-mail or LotusLive iNotes for cloud based email and other social networking tools. It can be hosted on site or in a cloud based model.

Canonical, Red Hat, CSS Corp, Compariv, Midas Networks, Virtual Bridges and ZSL are among the selling the package.

Also on Tuesday, Novell introduced SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 Service Pack 3, which offers upgraded Firefox browser and Novell GroupWise collaboration software and updated drivers to support the latest hardware and peripherals.

Meanwhile, Red Hat-backed open source organization Fedora on Tuesday announced the beta release of its next generation Linux code named “Constantine” which includes better video streaming support for the desktop.

October 19th, 2009

SCO story ends with a whimper

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 10:20 am

Categories: General, Legal, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, Patents, management

Tags: SCO Group Inc., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Remember SCO?

Back when I started writing about open source and Linux, in 2005, you couldn’t swing a cat without catching someone with an opinion about SCO.

SCO claimed Linux was infringing its patentscopyright. SCO claimed it owned Linux. SCO sued IBM.

CORRECTION: Microsoft claims patent rights on Linux code. The SCO case was about copyright.

Once SCO built a railroad of lawsuits, made it race against time. Now it’s done.

As quietly as possible last week, through a required SEC filing, SCO quietly canned CEO Darl McBride, the architect of its audacious “better luck through lawsuits” business plan.

They didn’t just ease the man out. They eliminated the positions of CEO and president, which McBride held. The top name on the org chart is now COO Jeff Hunsaker (above), whose background includes stints at WordPerfect, Novell and Corel (so he knows from failure).

Anyone have a few words they want to say over the body?

October 19th, 2009

Motorola goes all-in for Google Android

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 10:10 am

Categories: General, Google, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Strategy, mobile

Tags: Google Inc., Google Android, Motorola Inc., TV Poker, Sales Strategy, Mobile Operating Systems, Smart Phones, Sales Force Management, Cellular Phones, Sales

What makes the World Series of Poker compelling is that it ends.

TV poker has specified stakes and players going “all-in.”

Business lacks such climaxes. You seldom see such a grand gesture. There’s always another quarter. It’s a grind.

That’s what makes Motorola’s gamble on the Google Android, and the grand gesture of its “Droid” launch, worth a second look. The company is going “all-in.” There is no backup plan. If the sales parachute does not open the company falls like a rock.

Failure might be embarrassing for Google, but it has other partners and many other opportunities. For Motorola this is do or die.

Even if the company itself doesn’t go under with a Droid failure, this is its last shot at cellphone glory. Its phone sales have been cut in half the last few years, its market share is a shadow of its former glory, and the vultures are circling.

Having followed Motorola off-and-on for over 30 years I find this a fascinating spectacle. The company has been around for over 80 years, producing its first cellphone back in 1973. Motorola’s corporate history claims it invented Six Sigma, and among its acquisitions over the years were General Instrument and Symbol Technologies.

Now Motorola is betting on Google to help make it a player in radios again, its original niche. The first pictures of the platform are out, and were enough to send the stock soaring. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

How do you think it will taste?

October 15th, 2009

Should Google spin Android into a foundation?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 7:29 am

Categories: Development, General, Google, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Standards, management, support, telecom, wireless

Tags: Google Inc., Fork, Foundation, Eclipse, Linux Foundation, Forks, Linux, Java Development Tools, Open Source, Operating Systems

Google faces a conundrum.

How does it maintain control of Android and at the same time build a community of interests in which developers can seek profit?

The easy answer is to turn the Open Handset Alliance into the Android Foundation. (Fans of the late Isaac Asimov will recognize this fellow even in French.)

Critics love to claim that Eclipse is just an IBM front, but that’s a cheap shot, based on the fact that IBM gains huge benefits from Eclipse without having to pay all the bills there.

Foundations can be a great way to organize vendors who have a common purpose but divergent business plans. The Linux Foundation is a good example of this.

But there are risks in an Android Foundation, as Symbian’s David Wood said when they were going open source a year ago.

Forks are one.

Foundations lead naturally to forks. Every vendor who sells an “enhanced” version of Eclipse tools is pushing a proprietary fork. There are dozens of Linux distros, each of which forks the code in some way to provide added value.

How much Android forking can Google stand before the value starts dribbling through its fingers? Like to see some stuck-up Microsoft search engine sitting on an Android phone? (Make your blood boil? Well I should say.)

There is, of course, another risk in going the Foundation route. It doesn’t always work. Witness LiMo, which Motorola recently abandoned for Android. Witness Moblin, which Intel gave to the Linux Foundation. Witness Symbian itself for that matter.

The difference between the OHA and a conventional software foundation is that for Android to move forward it must first be expressed in phones, in hardware. The chicken-and-egg question here yields an easy answer. It’s the chicken. An egg, the software, is pretty meaningless if it’s just sitting on a server.

This fact reduces the threat of a fork. The value of any Android handset lies in its compatibility. Without that it might as well be a Windows Mobile set.

So long as Google is the biggest investor in Android, then, it’s probably doing the right thing by avoiding the foundation model. But at some point the rest of the ecosystem needs to grow up for Google to get its investment back.

So if Google does set up an Android Foundation some time down the road, know that it’s a sign of success, and that it no longer has to push this rock up the hill all by itself.

October 12th, 2009

Why the big Android bandwagon?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 8:19 am

Categories: General, Google, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Strategy, business models, marketing, mass market, mobile, wireless

Tags: Google Inc., Android Bandwagon, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

We have had open source mobile platforms for years. Why has Android become a bandwagon, one big enough that people are wondering if it’s not growing too big for its britches.

One word: marketing.

Thanks to its low-cost structure, Google can subsidize the marketing of its products to a degree even experienced rivals can’t match. As I have said before there is a price lower than free, and Google is uniquely positioned to pay that price.

Why? Look at the ad above, for the HTC myTouch, from Vimeo. All those celebrities aren’t just selling T-Mobile, or HTC. They are also selling Google. Android gave Google an excuse to do TV ads, with others’ help. Even if it doesn’t sell phones it sells the Google brand, and Google benefits from that.

It’s all about the sharing. By spreading the development effort through open source, Google also spreads the marketing cost as various players vie for position. But Google’s size and budget are what make this a good deal for everyone else.

Symbian and RIM can’t pay this price to the degree Google can. Symbian was spun-out to become self-sustaining, and its developer outreach efforts may be all it can do. RIM has a proprietary background, and proprietary profits, so for it to grab open source may easily be seen as desperation.

Google has both the money and the reputation to push product through the channel that has its roots in open source. Its multiplicity of developers means all of them have an incentive to drive down the open source incline and the open source development incline.

Google may eventually seek to monetize all this with online services, but it is developing the market before showing its hand in that area. Meanwhile, the ad revenue from having Web pages appear on more mobile kit is all it really needs. (Yes, this means the iPhone is subsidizing Android.)

Google’s cost structure gives it the power to be patient, something no other market player has. The Android bandwagon is built on this patience.

To succeed, however, it will have to deliver products as good or better than the iPhone, at the same or less cost, with just as many apps. That risk to its reputation is all Google is laying on the line here, but since failure will also hurt open source that risk is also shared.

October 8th, 2009

Google plays a hand of Ogre with Apple

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:58 am

Categories: Apple, General, Google, Hardware, Linux Handheld, Strategy, mass market, mobile, wireless

Tags: Google Inc., Google Android, Apple Inc., Ogre, Mobile Operating Systems, Games, Smart Phones, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Dana Blankenhorn

Those of a certain age will remember an early Steve Jackson game called Ogre. It was a two-player game where one player had a single piece, a powerful piece called the Ogre. The other player had everything else.

This pretty much sums up Google’s Android strategy against the Apple iPhone. Apple in this case plays the Ogre. (Picture from Steve Jackson Games.)

The combination of Apple’s proprietary iPhone design and its exclusive deal with AT&T has proven financially powerful. Apple created a market no one thought existed for a data-driven mobile Internet client and everyone else is playing catch-up.

With Dell now agreeing to supply AT&T with its version of the Android, Google now has game pieces on all four major U.S. carriers, including the one Apple plays on. T-Mobile was the first carrier to carry Android kit, Verizon is being promised a bunch of it. Sprint and Samsung will be in on the game in a Moment.

Everybody gets to play the way they want. Carriers can get exclusives on designs, and negotiate any deal on the resulting data flow they wish. Both new and old manufacturers get to play in the phone game and try to innovate on the margins.

All this work feeds back into the Android ecosystem, and all content sales feed into the Android marketplace. Google just wants a place to advertise alongside the content.

It’s a fun game, whose knock-on effects are a direct challenge to Microsoft, Symbian, and the Blackberry folks. Google seems destined to be the market’s #2 player by early next year, #2 with a bullet.

But please note this. All Google’s pieces taken together don’t yet add up to the power of Apple’s iPhone. The Ogre still has the power. But Google has the dice.

October 6th, 2009

How Verizon might ruin Android

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 12:06 pm

Categories: General, Google, Linux Handheld, mass market, mobile, wireless

Tags: Verizon Communications Inc., Wi-Fi, Wireless And Mobility, Dana Blankenhorn

Verizon makes Apple look open.

But they are one-half the U.S. mobile phone duopoly (T-Mobile and Sprint are minor players) so the kids at the Googleplex are doubtless celebrating news that Verizon will be working on bringing Android phones to market.

Verizon has a ton of incentive to make this work. Apple’s iPhone is the 800-pound gorilla in the wireless room, and since it’s exclusive to AT&T Verizon has been hemorrhaging market share (especially on the high end) for many months now.

Both sides were saying the right things today, but Verizon Wireless has based its corporate identity on maintaining control of its wireless environment.

Old habits will be hard to break.

Top management at Verizon seems to have decided that in its pursuit of market share it will throw everything it can at the wall and hope something sticks.

But what if Verizon succeeds? What if it starts selling a lot of Android kit, and those users start making heavy use of apps for which Verizon isn’t getting its usual cut?

What happens when those in Verizon middle management, raised on the iron belief that Verizon must get a cut of every bit on its wireless network, see Google spreading its open source gospel on its network?

I think I know. And I don’t like it.

It will take more than a few words at a press conference to remove my suspicions. How about you?