Google Android - The Android Log

You won’t hear Microsoft say this out loud, but secretly they are celebrating Google’s contribution of the Android mobile phone platform to the Open Handset Alliance - at least they aught to be. Android is perhaps the best thing to happen to Microsoft since they won the browser wars in the 1990’s. And given Verizon’s announcement yesterday that they will be opening up their network to any device and operating system that meets a “minimum technical standard” it seems that Android may have legs even if Google doesn’t secure the 700 MHz spectrum.

Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the software development industry has been, for the past 12 years, Sun Microsystems’ Java Platform. Starting in the mid to late 1990’s Java began to gain mind share among developers in every area in which Microsoft has an interest. Today, with over 6 million developers (according to Sun) Java clearly dominates the software development industry. Point in fact, Microsoft had to completely revamp their software development platform in 2000 to mimic the Java platform in order to complete; enter Microsoft .NET. While Microsoft .NET has been extremely successful at winning back a portion of the developer community from the Java platform, Java has remained the darling of the enterprise and perhaps the most successful software development platform in the history of computing. Microsoft really doesn’t like the Java platform very much. Java is Microsoft’s biggest competitor in software development and is arguably the platform to beat.

Ever since Clay Christensen’s award winning 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, the phrases “disruptive technology” and “disruptive innovation” have bounced around business circles like turbocharged pinballs at an arcade. Disruptive technology and disruptive innovation are typically good news for consumers who benefit from improvements in price and performance that often exceed consumer needs and expectations. However, incumbent businesses often find this unsettling—if not life threatening—when their existing business models are upended or made outright obsolete by the disruptions in the market and technology. What will happen when customers write their own programs? What will happen if customers and vendors agree to break out of the model of annual fees in exchange for an advertising funded model? As we get a handle on the range of options presented by the Android platform and related developments, there are many more business questions that remain unanswered.

Think of the changeover from horses to cars as a mode of transportation. What about the transition from components to integrated circuits? A disruption that has touched many of us is the changeover from film to digital cameras. Will mobile phones be next?

Fundamentally, Google and all the members of the OHA are trying to do two things: one is to grow their base of customers and revenue; two is to inspire and inject innovation into the mobile ecosystem. Long before Christensen’s book appeared, Everett Rogers led many Stanford students through his own research appearing in his book titled Diffusion of Innovations. His book opens with the task that remains: “One reason why there is so much interest in the diffusion of innovations is because getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult.” Google’s calling. It’s for you!