Open Handset Alliance
Gorilla in Sheep’s Clothing?

Everyone covering embedded technology has at least heard rumblings about open source mobile phones.  We even have the OpenMoko Neo1973 out there wooing open source developers and attracting publicity, but it isn’t clear that the stranglehold of the service providers will relax enough to bring these open-source platforms to prominence. 

The concept of open-source mobile device platforms is, of course, attractive.  Developers around the world can realize their visions of amazing applications for the mobile platform of the future, and, thanks to the glorious open source platform, the world will be their oyster, giving them an open market of potentially hundreds of millions of handsets to infect with their viru-, uh, I mean “enrich with their software.”  OK, so, perhaps completely open platforms face some security challenges as well.

The real challenge to open source phone deployment, however, is getting them into any percentage of the THREE BILLION consumers’ hands (yes, that’s a real number), past the watchful and greedy eyes of the service providers.  In the US, this is particularly tricky, as there is a long-standing tradition of the service providers controlling the game, choosing which handset manufacturers get to play, and carefully metering what software and services are deployed in order to protect profit margins. 

However, with the decline of the bricks-and-mortar economics of a manufacturing economy and the rise of the information-based economy, the one thing that’s been constantly up for grabs is the business model.  When information is the product, the options for deriving revenue expand exponentially.  Today’s dominant mobile phone service providers stick pretty close to the bricks-and-mortar model of times past, but alternative models are just as close as a company (or thirty) with billions of dollars to spend on an experiment. 

While the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) may sound like just another one of those industry consortia with a surplus of members and a deficit of meat (the press releases just started streaming in yesterday with charter members coming on board), there is one name on the list that jumps out just a bit more.  The thirty-four initial members of OHA are likely just a sample of what is to come.

In the embedded technology domain, we’d recognize a lot of the first-round volunteers for the OHA – Wind River will be a Linux commercialization partner, supplying “comprehensive solutions to enable open software, open devices, and an open ecosystem.”  Our translation of that is, “We see big potential in this platform, and we want to be the supplier of choice for industrial-strength development technology.”  Wind River is already established as a leading supplier of tools and support for device manufacturers that want the benefits of open-source operating systems with the stability and support of a commercial supplier.

The list goes on, however.  Aplix and Esmertec will supply Java technology, Ascender will supply the fonts (maybe not my first concern in deploying a new mobile platform, but…) Audience, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, Nvidia, Qualcomm, SiRF, Synaptics and TI will bring a variety of silicon technologies, including processors, wireless and power management, GPS, UI, and DSP technology.  Nuance will bring speech recognition.  PacketVideo will bring, well, what else? - packet video, and SONiVOX will provide audio software and IP.   All these (and more) have jumped into the embedded technology side of the equation.

Handset manufacturers have jumped on the OHA bandwagon as well.  HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung have all signed up to pump out handsets that will support the alliance standard.  Building devices, however, as we have mentioned, is only a necessary condition of market success; it is not sufficient.  The first real clue to the potential market traction of OHA is the A-list of global mobile operators that have joined the team.  China Mobile, KDDI (Japan), NTT DoCoMo, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica have all announced that they’re in.  What is attracting these companies to the party?  Most likely it is not the lure of open source software socialism.  One doesn’t get this kind of attention on a platform of altruism.  More likely it is the driving presence of Google, the model-busting company that has turned numerous industries on their collective ears with revolutionary shifts in business model thinking.

Google brings several things to the open source mobile handset initiative.  Billions of dollars of revenue don’t hurt, of course, but Google’s track record for re-writing the book on how an industry operates are more likely at the heart of the excitement about OHA.  Rumors of a “Google Phone” have been abundant for months, but details have been scarce.  Now, OHA arrives and puts a method to the madness.  Google’s “phone” (although we think it isn’t likely that a single handset will ever be the “Google phone”) will be based on an open source infrastructure supported by the cream of the electronics and software industry and by some of the world’s biggest mobile service providers.

Why would the service providers sign up for something that so threatens the super-profitable status-quo?  Probably because they see the handwriting on the wall.  Google is long rumored to be sizing up a bid on bandwidth themselves – a move which would put them in direct competition with existing service providers.  The smart move for service providers is to join up preemptively in order to take advantage of their existing market presence and infrastructure, reducing Google’s ability to differentiate themselves if they too become a carrier.

The Google factor likely means that the OHA platform will offer services and phones through a different business model than current carriers provide.  We think it likely that many of the services will be advertising supported.  Given the three billion handsets deployed worldwide, the potential of reaching consumers with commercial messages through their mobile handsets exceeds that of any other medium in history. If free television survived for decades supported only by advertising, it is not inconceivable that free (or very inexpensive) wireless service could survive the same way.

Only time will tell what we will actually see from Google and the OHA.  Along with tens of thousands of other developers, I’m considering spending my weekends whipping up a killer app for the open source Google phone.  The development platform is essentially free, and, if I just came up with the perfect application, I’d be famous.

Kevin Morris, Embedded Technology Journal

November 6, 2007

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