Nokia follows Nintendo as Android takes over the World
If you take a look at the mobile phone news these past few months, there's one thing that's been dominating global coverage: smartphones, and in particular, a confusing plethora of new models, applications and features that have suddenly swarmed onto the market.
Traditionally seen as ugly phones for business, smartphones are set to become the big thing in the mobile phone market for 2009, with no fewer than five key smartphone platforms (all of which, of course, are incompatible with each other!)
There's fierce competition between smartphone manufacturers, not just to attract users, but also developers, as the more applications a platform has, the more likely it is that other developers will develop applications for that platform: success breeds success.
Which reminds me of another, similarly competitive market: games consoles, which has seen some spectacular winners and losers over the years. What's more, if you compare the different strategies of the different console platforms, you'll find them remarkably similar to the strategies currently being employed by the different smartphone platforms.
So is Nokia really following Nintendo's strategy? It certainly is, while Android is set for nothing less than world domination.
Read on after the jump to see why.
Games console strategies
With a games console, success depends as much on the quantity of games as it does quality. Consequently, there's a huge push by console manufacturers to get developers writing games for their console at the expense of the competition. With the cost of developing a game running into the millions, it's not cost-effective for a developer to develop a game for a console that isn't actually used by anyone!
It's a similar story with smartphones. Developing a new software platform for a mobile phone is not exactly a cheap thing to do. If you're a huge company that's just released a new smartphone platform (such as Google has done with Android), you seriously have to commit to the project.
Any hint that you might get bored of the project and fall behind the pace set by your competitors, and your developers will leave your platform in droves. It costs time and money to develop smartphone apps, and just like the games console business, if developers feel that a platform has too few users, it's simply not worth their while to develop for it.
The result is that the platform languishes behind the others, looking like a lost puppy called Bobby who finds he has no mates.
We're now in the interesting position of seeing five smartphone platforms emerge at the same time, some of which have been around for a long time, while others are completely new to the scene. All are striving to attract as many developers as they can in order to be seen as a thriving platform for users to buy and for other developers to build for.
The strategies used by the companies pushing their new smartphone platforms are remarkably similar to the strategies employed by the console manufacturers.
Nokia and Nintendo
Nokia now owns the Symbian platform, which although has been around for a long time and powers more smartphones than any other platform, has not really been adopted by many application developers, leaving Nokia to develop most of the applications itself.
Fortunately, it's done this rather well, but the strategy has led to relatively few Symbian apps being developed. Quite whether Nokia can continue developing apps that compete with its more open competitors remains to be seen.
In many ways, then, Nokia is following Nintendo's strategy: a company with a superb range of games that it developed itself, but which has had comparatively little support from third party developers.
Fortunately for Nokia, Nintendo isn't exactly struggling at the moment, but the Wii was make or break for the Japanese company, as its previous console, the GameCube, struggled badly against the PlayStation 2. Whether the Symbian platform can compete effectively with the iPhone and Android platforms in the years to come remains to be seen.
Apple and Sony
In contrast, Apple are adopting an approach similar to Sony's PlayStation platform. The PlayStation relies as much on other developer's games as it does on Sony's own. Sony provides the funds for the big quality games, while third party developers provide a huge catalogue of mostly second tier games.
Sony, however, keeps tight control over the platform by restricting game development through tough licensing agreements. If Sony doesn't like your game, it won't be published on the PlayStation.
Similarly with the iPhone. Apple have opened up the platform to a certain extent, enabling third party developers to create their own applications for it, but it's Apple that controls the market. In this case, Apple has actively pulled applications that it doesn't like for no apparent reason, even after granting them approval for sale on their iPhone Store.
Every coder and Web 2.0 company has rushed to develop an iPhone app, and so we now have a bewildering array of second tier apps, with Apple's apps ruling the roost - exactly like the Playstation ecosystem. This has undoubtedly been successful for both Apple and Sony, but Apple will soon have a real battle on their hands with the recent launch of the first Google Android phone, the T-Mobile G1.
Windows Mobile and the PC
Windows Mobile, now in its sixth generation, is another venerable smartphone platform that has been around for a number of years, and prior to last year, was Symbian's only competitor.
However, with little competition, it's not exactly kept up with the times, and now looks positively old fashioned.
Indeed, comparisons can be drawn with Microsoft's entire desktop-based strategy: focus everything on a Windows-based desktop and tie the user to their PC or smartphone.
In the new age of the Web as a platform, though, this is an increasingly irrelevant perspective. The ability to store data in the cloud (i.e. on Web 2.0 services) means you can use a Web 2.0 app on any PC wherever you are, and on any smartphone with a decent Web browser.
No longer do you have to email files between your work and home PC, or get annoyed whenever you realize you've left the files you wanted to work on at work: you simply log onto your Word processing application, spreadsheet, project management software, or whatever it is you're working on, and start working. As long as you have a Web connection, you can continue working.
Microsoft have tried to rectify this recently with the launch of their new Microsoft Mesh concept, but it still ties you into Windows and Windows Mobile. They've not yet accepted the fact that computing is now completely independent of the Operating System. The Web is the platform for the 21st century: the Operating System is just something that browsers run on.
Obviously, the analogy of Windows Mobile is the PC: completely open with no licensing costs, so free for any developer to develop whatever they want, but increasingly outdated, with an anachronistic world view that sees Microsoft Windows as the centre of the Universe when the rest of the world is increasingly moving to the Web.
No innovation, ugly user interface, poor performance and a poor image, Windows Mobile is increasingly being left behind, and shows no signs of catching up with the competition.
XPERIA and the XBox
Sony Ericsson is a surprise entry in the smartphone platform market. Its soon-to-be-released XPERIA X1 smartphone is based on Windows Mobile, but with an added twist - its own unique user interface that looks nothing like Windows Mobile.
The new XPERIA platform is, in effect, a shiny new face on top of the Windows Mobile platform. The user gets all the benefits of Windows Mobile functionality, but with the added advantage of a brand new user interface, something that Windows Mobile desperately needs.
So pleased is Sony Ericsson with the new XPERIA interface that it's opened it up to developers to develop their own applications that feature the same look and feel.
In this way, the XPERIA can be thought of as similar to the XBox 360. Microsoft's games console is based on its Windows operating system and is, essentially, a heavily modified PC underneath. Anyone can develop games for the XBox 360 - even bedroom coders - but it remains a struggling platform, struggling in third place behind the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation.
Although the XBox 360 doesn't suffer from the same lack of innovation as the Windows Operating System, it's still, nevertheless, seen as an also-ran console compared to the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.
There's every chance the XPERIA could go the same way as the XBox 360: undoubtedly technically impressive, and open for all to develop applications for, but ultimately relegated to a niche position as it simply can't compete against the major smartphone platforms.
Android and the Web
Finally, we have Google Android. It's no secret that Google has based the new Android platform on the philosophy of the Web: completely open. Not just open in terms of letting anyone develop whatever they want for it. Every Android handset manufacturer must keep their device open and provide application developers with full access to all the underlying hardware features of their device - something that no other smartphone platform can boast.
Better still, Android is completely open source: all 8 million lines of code are completely free to download, use and modify as you wish.
Unprecedented Innovation
All this openness not only fosters innovation from a technical perspective - you can do far more with an open handset than you can with a handset such as the iPhone, whose features are locked down by Apple and not available to the majority of developers - it also fosters innovation from an economic perspective.
If every other developer is free to push the boundaries of an Android device, then the only way you as an Android developer can compete, is to push the boundaries even further. The result is unlimited innovation on a grand scale, with the potential for Android evolution and innovation to mirror that of the Web's.
Obviously, then, Android follows the Web model. Technically speaking, of course, the Web isn't a games console, but it does offer Flash, Silverlight and Java as platforms on which games can be developed. However, it's not these technologies that should be seen as the metaphor for Android: it's the flexibility of the underlying platform (i.e. the Web) that ultimately leads to technologies such as Flash, Silverlight and Java.
In short, everyone is free to develop whatever they want on the Android platform: hardware, software, platforms, even entire ecosystems. It's hard to see anything standing in the way of Android, as manufacturers such as Motorola, Samsung and HTC are all currently working on devices for it, which will encourage application developers to develop new applications the likes of which we've never seen before.
As the pace of innovation increases on Android, the complexity, quality, diversity and usefulness of its applications will soon overtake all the other platforms, just as the Web is making Operating Systems seem entirely redundant, forcing them underground and beneath the ubiquitous Web browser.
Android and the coming of the One Machine
Indeed, with so many handset manufacturers developing Android devices, and with so many new applications being developed for the Android platform, perhaps the most important aspect of the Android platform that will determine its ultimate success is the same aspect of the Web that has led to its domination: ubiquity.
The Web is everywhere and being without it feels as odd as being without electricity. The Android platform is the one that's best placed to bring the open Web platform to you no matter where you are. In the long run, Android will win, just as,ultimately, the Web itself will win over every other computing platform that currently exists.
Don't believe me? Check out Kevin Kelly's talk below on what he calls the Web as the One Machine: the world's largest machine that now matches the human brain in terms of complexity and processing power. Marvel at the statistics, feel a chill run down your spine as you realize the enormous untapped potential of the Web that we're only now starting to get a glimpse of, and then remember that it's the Android platform that will extend the Web and thus the One Machine to the personal device in your pocket.
The future is Android's for the taking.
