When Google's (GOOG) Android mobile operating system started making noise at the end of 2009 with a flurry of handset shipments from multiple wireless carriers, all signs pointed to a healthy 2010 for Google's platform. Indeed, the Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless and the Nexus One, sold by Google itself, also made a lot of noise recently. But it seems the familiar "iPhone killer" phrase has surfaced once again.
When Google CEO Eric Schmidt told attendees of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in his keynote speech that Google was seeing 60,000 daily shipments of handsets using the Android operating system, that caused a small pause with many folks. At that rate, Google's Android would be seeing shipments of 5.4 million per quarter. By contrast, Apple's (AAPL) iPhone sold 8.7 million units in its most recent quarter. Can Google really get up to sales speed that quickly? It seems to be happening.
But, Google is taking a completely different approach than Apple. By allowing anyone to manufacture and sell an Android-based wireless handset for free, the sheer number of Android-based handsets will most likely overpower Apple's single, tightly controlled iPhone ecosystem in the next few years. In many ways, it's similar to the early days of Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple: Microsoft licensed (not for free, of course) its software to work with a wide range of computing devices made by manufacturers everywhere.
Apple controlled the MacIntosh experience from start to finish. Although many argue that the Apple experience was, and still is, superior, the market share of Microsoft's operating system compared to Apple's operating system is clear. Will the same happen to Google, which allows anyone to use its operating system for free, even without a tightly controlled user experience? Time will tell.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-19-2010 @ 10:18AM
Giuseppe Taibi said...
Not so fast. Apple has 90% of market share for computers priced $1000 and above. Also, the times of "good enough" user experience that has characterized the first wave of user experience is in a decline. People are done with the pains of mixing hardware and software from different vendors and now crave a fully integrated computing ecosystem that gets out of the way. That is precisely Apple's offer to the market and I believe it is going to be much more successful this time around than it ever was.