Nov 20 2007
Android Development
Do you have a good idea and you want to build a mobile application? Google helps you and much more then that: Google pays you! With the Google’s $10 million bounty put on application development for Android, development teams can penetrate the market. Intellectual property rights will be retained by developers but they have to grant Google a license for testing, evaluations and Android platform promotion.
Good news so far, but please answer my question: Is Google strong enough to compete with Symbian (72.4% market share), Linux (13.3% market share), Windows Mobile (6.1% market share) or RIM (5.3% market share)? The answer to this question will not come very quickly. I didn’t want to mention about Apple because iPhone have only 1.3% market share, but now I think it’s relevant for this article, because Google will be in the same situation.
The development language on Android is Java. Those who are familiar with RIM or Symbian will be pleased, because the switch to Android will be easy for them. But from my experience, the smartphones market isn’t very popular right now and many smartphone owners are using their devices mostly for phone calls and not for applications
In the end all I say is “Good luck, Google!”. They need it!
I think Google can’t compete Symbian.
This is my opinion too. I wonder if Symbian is really their target or they only want to compete Windows Mobile as another act of the “holy war” against Microsoft.