Kaiyzen

The impending news of the release date of the first Android based handset has writers a buzz.  Come September 23rd we shall have the details on T-Mobile’s HTC Android based G1 device.  The analysts clairvoyents are already projecting around 4% market share of all smartphones for Android sales in Q4.

Lets consider for a moment that the analysts nail nail it this time.., or even underestimate their figures lets look at what things will be like for mobile developers developing their solutions over the next 12 months.

First.., lets look at some of the OS variations that they will be dealing with:

• Windows Mobile 6
• Apple OSX Mobile
• LIMO
• Symbian
• Palm OS
• and now Android
• Homegrown Proprietary (P2K, Sony Ericsson, etc)

Now mix in some languages/frameworks (J2ME, Cocoa/Objective C, C/C++/C#, etc)…, a dash of browsers (Opera, Mobile IE, Mobile Safari, Android/Chrome, S60, Mozilla, etc)…, the result.., you are left with a perfect reason for why excel is needed to manage dev/qa matrices.

For all the talk and hype regarding Android’s release and being open source and how great it is going to be for the marketplace.., no one seems to bring up the fact that developers are now going to have to add one or more rows/columns to those developement and QA matrices.  Not to mention when various carriers make use of Android and its open source nature they will customize it to possibly gain competitive advantage over the other guys.

Google is throwing their hat into the ring with a free open source mobile OS b/c they want their search/maps/mail on the carriers decks…, not to fight for carrier and wireless ecosystem openess.  They are doing nobody a favor except all the Google Fan Boys out there who want to create Open Social and App Engine solutions.

On the bright side we are approaching the era of Javascript, flash, silverlight, etc, on mobiles which will ease the pain of most developers.  What we really need to get to is JS objects and handles for the core compenents of the handset that developers want easy access to:

• GPS/Location info
• Camera
• Address Book

Once these are exposed via a flash and/or JS interface this is when mobile will really take off and become what it deserves to be.., the new sector where we will see some of the next big winners in the software space.

Two things to keep an eye on over the next 12 months besides all the iPhone and Android hype.  One is Yahoo!’s OneConnect and Blueprint movements.., the other is what Palm is getting ready for primetime in ‘09.

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