The sanest commentary on the new Nexus One came in the Canadian Globe and Mail (techmeme ran a glut of tech posts on the launch). Quoting analysts the G&M reported:
Although there is an opportunity to make some money on phone sales, Andy Rubin, Google’s VP of engineering said the main point of Android is to move Google’s lucrative, user-tailored advertising strategy into the relatively still-new realm of mobile browsing.
“This is the next front of our core business,” he said. “This phone is looking a lot like your laptop did four or five years ago.”
Noting that smart phones were increasingly acting as a consumer’s computer of record, Mr. Rubin added that, “We’re trying to make sure a lot of people have great access to Google services… If you want the phone, you go to the store, you grab the device, and the advertising model takes off.”
Google rightly wants mobile phones to run web searches in ultra fast fashion. Perhaps the only surprises are that the phone will be sold online and at $500 +, disproving assertions that the phone would be cut price.
One of the questions it begs is: is this a signal that in future the OS company has to offer more than the underlying OS technology?
That can be interpreted in a number of ways.
Does it have to optimise the OS to suit the mobile ad market? Apple’s purchase of Quattro and Google’s purchase of Ad Mobs suggest the broader ad network too may be a new business frontier.
The second was suggested on the blog a few days back – Google is thought to incentivize device manufacturers with a share of mobile ad revenues as it does with operators.
UPDATE: I found perhaps a more solid reference to the ad revenue share:
FBR [Capital Markets] …. suggest[s] that these incentives may be as high as $25-50 per device. This is simply an offer that no carrier can refuse, particularly when U.S. carriers are currently in the habit of paying $50-150 per handset sold in subsidies.
But Google is also omnipresent. Google invest heavily in facilitating advertising, and feedback via analytics and in website optimisation. And in mobile click through can give way to dial. But set that alongside the Apple Quattro purchase.
It raises the question – is a new OS business model emerging? If so then Symbian could be well placed to deliver new services via and within its burgeoning, and of course global, community. Clearly the thinking on what that beomes has to continue to evolve - some comments here and at ideas.symbian.org on this specific issue?
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Not sure I follow your last para. Google is paying carriers to take their device. How could SF/SF OS based phone makers possibly do the same? Can Nokia pay AT&T $50/phone to take it?
So, can you please elaborate?
(Sorry did not have time to read the all the stuff you linked to).
Sure – will clarify. I’m reflecting the view that this is the real game changer from Google. Symbian might be able to counter it with a much stronger community and set of services to support of members that have high added value – If we agree that the business model is changing (and that is the first question – is it or is it not?) then I think one option is to explore what new services an OS might offer that have the added value to respond to the changing currents of business.
Note that the subsidy is only paid to those ODM’s who elect to use ‘vanilla’ Android – that is, the version which is setup to drive users towards Google’s main business, ad’s.
Symbian therefore needs to be targeted towards those ODM’s (or even operators) that are confident enough in themselves to believe that they can generate equivalent revenue themselves using their own services, or services that Symbian comes up with for them.
It has add-ons for Linux and Firefox. The Linux community has even accepted .NET as a way to program. But that’s what Microsoft will become. A add-on for the other OS.All these other phones have all these gigs but android just needs to make use of it. And once android does, then that 16 gig internal memory phone will be a big waste of money
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