UPDATED: Google’s Move Into Software & Services Shakes Up Mobile Industry & Tears Down Walled Gardens; Taking A Page From Wikinomics – The Platform Provider Takes All In The End » mobilegroove

Separating the news from the hype has been a tough task over the weeks, with the reams written on Google’s on-again-off-again GPhone plans. As this post (via Mediapost) aptly points out, TODAY is “D-Day For Google’s GPhone.” In my book the ‘D’ stands for divulge, since Google are finally going to put an end to the misinformation about this mobile milestone.

Let’s recount what we know for sure. Google, whose initial strategy was to fight the battle for mobile supremacy using a mix of Google-optimized mobile search and apps, has changed its tactics, extending its arsenal with services, software and operating systems. More on the Open Handset Alliance in this release. (Look for Peggy’s “big picture” analysis further down. We’re braced for a flood of comments.)

Despite being late to the game, this change in tack may see Google using a rather hackneyed business plan that you may recognise. By offering the handset industry a software development kit that has been described as a “complete mobile phone software stack” (based on ‘open-source’ technology and including software from the Linux world), for free, Google plans to use the openness of the Google Phone as an invitation for software developers and content providers to design applications for it. Read between the lines, and this master plan is sure to remind you of another IT behemoth.

The New York Times sees the similarity. It writes: “An irony in all of this, of course, is that Google, though not in a dominant position, might be able to replay the strategy that Microsoft itself used to bulldoze Netscape in the mid-1990s. Just as Microsoft successfully ‘cut off’ Netscape’s air supply by giving away its Explorer Web browser as part of the Windows operating system, Google may shove Windows Mobile aside if the Google Phone is given away to handset makers.”

At one level, we should celebrate the long-awaited arrival of a strategy that could finally unify the fragmented mobile space. (Indeed, if Google offers a software platform that can deliver optimisation within the constraints of the mobile device – processing power, memory, battery life, screen size – then it will certainly spell relief for developers frustrated by the expense of having to write for a myriad of devices.)

At another level, we should be aware that Google’s plans are more than a lightning rod for the mobile industry, channelling energy to create a necessary and sustainable ecosystem to turbo-charge the development of software for mobile phones based on open-source technology.

Dan Olschwang, chief executive of JumpTap, a white-label mobile search and advertising company, suggests today’s announcement might also be read as a “Google trap” to get developers to write to Google software.

Either way, it marks the end of the status quo and forces mobile operators to rethink their game.

(As JumpTap puts it in an email: “Google’s announcement may be misconstrued as a forum for interoperability to advance mobile applications and services, yet it is actually a part of Google’s multilayered strategy to win over the wireless search and advertising industries and commoditize all key players. By losing control of key services, such as search and advertising, operators are at risk of losing everything – customer data, their brand, revenue and ultimately the customer.”)

UPDATED – Peggy adds: Happy coincidence that I have chosen this week to catch up on required reading, deep-diving yet again into the must-read business book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. It argues that, thanks to the Internet, masses of people can innovate to produce content, goods and services. The core message: Openness pays! Winning isn’t about guarding proprietary tools and data; only the company that provides people with the tools to improve or build on its products and services will make the transition from good to great.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt (who gave the book rave reviews, by the way) is an obvious disciple to Wikinomics. His grand plans wrest control from carriers over the design of mobile equipment and software (an influence carriers have long abused to force equipment developers to omit or cripple many consumer-friendly features and help build “walled garden” Internet access) and put it in the hands of all of us.

But keep in mind, this is the outcome IF Google does indeed pay more than lip-service to openness. Put another way, if Google is serious about open source then we are witness to a seismic shift in the industry. [And even if this is all merely another scheme where some apps/devices/services are more "open" than others or enjoy the extensive "support" of key companies such as Google, there is still no way back to business as usual. BTW, sitting in on the press call, I learned Google plans to offer some specially "hosted services" to assist developers working to make Android the market leader, so it appears there may again be differing degrees of openness…]

Brendan Benzing, VP of Mobile at white-label mobile search provider InfoSpace and passionate proponent of Wikinomics, points out that garden walls will come tumbling down and “matching open for open is the only way to take control of the change rather than be crushed by it.”

Fortunately, what works for Google can work for any other company in this industry brave enough to open up and deliberately capture, extend and exploit the capabilities of other partners, companies and stakeholders in their business networks.

Against this backdrop, Brendan has an intriguing action plan for mobile operators determined to occupy a pivotal position in this new (and increasingly open) world order: Re-evaluate your approach to application development and work together to create clear and unified standards for developers; enable companies to make their content searchable, findable and monetizeable (preferably from a single search box); and strive to add value on top of the network you provide.

It’s an old game with new rules. Size is relative; real strength is in numbers and arises from being a hub in a vast and diverse business ecosystem.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing, Mobile Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.