Android army keeps growing as Dell enlists; Will the mobile OS war follow PC history?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=27310&tag=trunk;content

        What users want are devices that are easy to use and that do what they want them to. At the moment, only Palm, Apple and Google have really touched that market, though RIM has at least tried with it’s latest versions of the Blackberry; the Curve and the Bold. Up to now, Nokia has been the biggest cellular provider, followed closely by Sony-Errikson, Motorola and others, but their so-called Smart Phone wasn’t exactly the easiest to use. The same holds true for RIM’s Blackberry models, extremely capable, but not easy. RIM’s biggest advantage was that their phone was a functional PDA as well, and looked better than Palm’s PDAs.

        However, with Apple’s iPhone, consumers were introduced to a Smart Phone that was very easy to use and even made ordinary cell-phone features easier to use, such as the camera, ringtones and even email. Granted, the iPhone wasn’t an enterprise-ready device, and it wasn’t marketed to the enterprise; but the people who did buy them wanted them to function in the workplace as well. RIM and Nokia tried to compete in this ’simplified’ concept market, but without major price concessions, neither one could compete with the sales rate of the iPhone.

        Along comes Palm. They’re already dying because the purpose-built PDA market is fading fast — losing to the likes of netbooks and Blackberries. Apple demonstrates that a different kind of PDA is in real demand, so they revamp their OS and create the Pre — a very capable concept… at least, on paper. Unfortunately, in the rush to release their version of the ‘Consumer’s Smartphone,’ they forget one of the reasons Palm became a leader — the build quality of their hardware. While Palm’s Pre got a great start, the almost-flimsy feel of the device saw sales drop drastically after only a few weeks.

        Now we see Motorola’s Droid, running on Google’s Android OS. Is it a success? Well, a lot of pundits seem to think so. With the Droid on the market for only a couple weeks, business analysts cry out that Android is the best thing ever and will dominate the market in only two years! This on an opening sales week that was hardly any better than the Palm Pre’s and less than 1/10th that of the Apple iPhone. Is it that nobody can bear to see Apple succeed so greatly two times in a row, or do they truly believe that such a tiny initial release can really grow into world dominance in such a short time?

        I’m not saying that the Apple iPhone is the best thing ever; what I’m pointing out is that it took the iPhone almost three years to reach a 17% world market share in smart phones despite having three separate record-setting releases. How can a mere 100,000 Droids in one weekend herald a 13% market in two years when Apple’s 1.5 Million iPhones on opening weekend took them three years?

        Where’s the logic? Where’s simple common sense? I’ve seen reports of three different ‘droid devices released or announced in the last couple of months, and of them all, Motorola’s Droid seems to be the best of the lot. I won’t deny that Android stands a chance to become a major player in the smartphone OS market, but unless the products can at least match up to the Droid and sell overall numbers at least ten times the current Droid rate, then Android will just be another one of four biting and gnawing for every scrap of market share.

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