People Don’t Care About Android, Only the Phone Matters

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by Alan Harten

ABI Research, who are highly respected independent industry analysts, have been taking considerable interest in the new G1 phone being launched by T-mobile.

This is the first phone that makes use of the Google platform Android, developed by the giant internet company’s subsidiary Open Handset Alliance (OHA).

At the moment mobile phones use several real time operating systems that most users are very happy with.

These systems are the brains behind around 85% of all mobile phones across the globe.

All these systems boil down to two choices for consumers, basic phone or smart phone.

ABI suspects that the new Android will be something of a revolution that may see a shift towards high-level operating systems powering the world’s mobiles.

It is true that there is a huge amount of fragmentation in the mobile industry, with different companies pushing different platforms in the hope of gaining market share, or even cornering a significant part of the market.

ABI thinks that Google may be seeking realistic common standards and may bring the industry together under one standards umbrella. Of course this umbrella will be Google’s.

The new Andriod phones will be brimming with features that are intended to lure people away from other more basic phones, while at the same time outstripping smartphones in terms of high volumes of sales, something that smartphones are not really achieving.

ABI believe that to make the Andriod work as a big time seller, OHA and phone manufacturers will have to avoid promoting Android itself, as they believe that buyers have little interest in which platform runs the phone, and only care about what it does and how it looks.