On the breaking out of news of Google acquiring Motorola, I was wondering whether mobile industry is going through the same phase once enterprise ERP market did- big fishes swallowing the smaller ones and finally as a consumer you have very little choice.( Now there are only 2 note worthy enterprise ERP vendors- SAP and Oracle with Microsoft Dynamics being a distant 3rd.)
After the Google's take over of Motorola, news (or rumors) that's doing the rounds is Microsoft acquiring Nokia and Blackberry. This is a very bad news for other mobile device makers.
What is the meaning of open source, if Google itself owns and manufactures a device that uses Android OS? OK, Google has promised that it will honor all its previous open source commitments. But think of Samsung or HTC, they need to compete with Google (Motorola) using the same Android OS. You may argue that Samsung or HTC can customize Android and give more value adds, but who can customize it better than Google itself?
Though 35+ device makers who depend on Android have made a statement that they welcome the deal, it's highly unlikely that they like whatever Google has done. With this trend, I guess finally there will be only 3 or 4 vendors and smart phone choices available for consumers
- Apple /iPhone
- Google/ Motorola devices
- Microsoft/Nokia devices
- Blackberry (if not swallowed by Microsoft)
- HP/Palm (any one using that?)
Players like Samsung would have understood by now, the risk of depending on only one source for mobile OS. They should either develop their own software platform or perish. History teaches us that one company cannot be good at both hardware and software (with the exception of Apple).
This consolidation has both pluses and minuses. On the positive side, vendors will vie with each other to introduce new features. In fact there may be ground breaking innovations because of better integration of knowledge between the hardware and software communities (Can we attribute Apple's success to this factor??)
On the negative side, your device will become obsolete every 4 or 5 months, you may be threatened with service stop notices for your 'old' device, your spending on mobiles will increase. A few people may forget the fact that mobile is a basically device that is used to talk to someone. So you may need to remind often 'a rose is a rose is a rose'
All this started because of the nasty patent war between Google and others (read 'Microsoft' and 'Apple'). Attention, dear biggies- you are being respected for your original patents, not for the bought-out ones with your ugly money power
Well the main reason for Google to take this step was to get some patent rights under their hood. That is the main reason they acquired Motorola Mobility alone. With companies firing patent infringement suits they had very little choice. But cant deny your POV.
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