Google Android might be the OS for just two mobile handsets today, but that’s poised to blossom to double digits later this year. And according to IMS Research Analyst Chris Schreck, Google Inc. (GOOG) should expect device fragmentation to come along with that – a big threat to Android’s long-term success.
The vendors, developers and operators that make up the Android-focused Open Handset Alliance (OHA) can tweak Android as they need to, to protect their intellectual property or to run more effectively on a specific form factor or carrier network.
But in the end that means there will be multiple flavors of Android, all of them incompatible with each other. That, in turn, necessitates different versions of each application or updates to accommodate the entire device ecosystem. On the whole, such activity negates the cost efficiencies inherent in the idea of a standard, open operating system, and potentially makes the Android Market a confusing place to shop for widgets.
“The idea of open source is to spread the cost of platform maintenance and evolution across the entire open source community and all the participants in the OHA, rather than having specific OEMS and MNOs having to bear the cost of making their own version of the platform entirely themselves,” Schreck told Telephony. “The key is not necessarily to focus on the number of handset designs, but the OHA has to have the ability to maintain the platform as it exists in one form across a number of different OEM designs.”
