Published in Mobiles

Android tanking against Blackberry and iPhone

by on25 August 2009


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So much for Open Source


The
Open Source Android mobile phone operating system is not doing particularly well against more established brands, according to new figures.

According to the research firm Canalys, the iPhone now commands nearly 14 percent of smartphone sales and BlackBerry about 21 percent. Android has only 3 percent. Android only hit the shops last autumn and it does take some time to bed in and there are more Android devices on the way, so the platform is bound to attract more users. But the Canalys figures show that Android is unlikely to grow as quickly as the iPhone's. In the last year its use has increased by more than 600 percent.

But while Android is a developers' machine, in comparison to the entirely closed iPhone system, for some reason it has failed to attract the interest of the wider developer community. Android is not being as well marketed and thus has lost the cool factor that Apple has. It has become the SanDisk Sansa, Creative Zen and the Zune of the smart phone world. In otherwords cheaper, better machines that no one wants for Christmas.

But what this state of affairs shows is that Open Source by itself is not enough to get the sort of products consumers want. In consumer land it is not enough to have good software, the people behind it have to push it. So far it appears that Google is not doing nearly enough of that.
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