“Google Inc. is learning that changing the cellphone industry isn’t easy,” Jessica E. Vascellaro and Amol Sharma report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The Internet giant and more than 30 partners announced in November a bold plan for a new breed of handsets based on a suite of mobile software called Android. At the time, Google said it planned to have the new phones on the market by the second half of this year,” Vascellaro and Sharma report.
“Google now says that the handsets won’t arrive until the fourth quarter. And some cellular carriers and makers of programs that work with Android are struggling to meet that schedule, people familiar with the situation say,” Vascellaro and Sharma report.
“Wireless carriers throughout the industry are confronting challenges as they seek to customize the Android software—which includes an operating system and programs that work with it—to promote their own Internet services. Some handset makers are taking longer than they thought to integrate Android, test it and build custom user interfaces to meet carrier specifications,” Vascellaro and Sharma report.
Full article (subscription required) here.
Perhaps Google’s in cahoots with Apple? If so, it’s genius. If not, Android is serving the same purpose.
I suppose they’re having difficulty accomodating the hundreds of extraneous menus that phone makers demand their phones include. Even when another company provides them with some decent software (I’m assuming Android has some qualities) phone makers struggle to put it in their hardware – it’s just alien to them that a phone should work well.
Don’t care! If it’s not an iPhone, I don’t want it.
It’s gonna take time for Google. Ask Microsoft how it have been to have Windows Mobile out there…
It’s time for Ed Colligan to pop his head back up with a slightly amended quote:
“Search guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
Uh-oh, Google better watch out, lest its partners become disillusioned with the quality and reliability of Android, and go back to Windows Mo… wait, what the heck am I saying? Google will be fine.
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Integrators take time to position and work Android into a value point to take Microsoft’s Windows Mobile market by Storm.
What’s cool about saying my Phone runs Windows Mobile? Saying, my phone runs Android or my iPhone runs OSX, is cool.
“Windows is your Parents’ and Grandparents’ OS. Get modern get your NIX on!”
The carriers will either get their shit together and provide what people want, or people will get an iPhone and they will be left behind with their pathetic offerings. Android is a chance for them to comply with their customers’ wishes. Looks like they are arrogant enough to ignore it. Well, they can always buy a senator or two I suppose.
I’m looking forward to seeing the final Android OS. I doubt I’d buy an Android phone, but I hope it beats Windows mobile.
Re: Ed Colligan, Steve-o should take the stage and tell everyone how easy it is to make a great phone. “It was a breeze for us. Search guys should be able to figure it out in their sleep!”
I have same hope for Android as well, even played with the SDK when it first came out. But after looking at the iPhone I realized Android may suffer the same stigma as Linux. It will never have a ‘final’ version. Sure it is FREE, and it is powerful, but every handset maker and developer will still have to pair it to the best hardware and customize it so not all Android phones are the same from every carrier and handset model – what’s the commercial advantage for Nokia if their gPhone is exactly the same as Samsung’s? They’re already having trouble ‘copying’ the iPhone with OS they know, to try to develop something newer or even just look and feel like the iPhone on Android will be hard, I think, very hard. On top of trying to adding software to a Linux platform that will fit in with business and enterprise. So even when a complete product is out, given their waiting consumers, the phone will be allowed to be modded and broken within a week, with all common user standards and experience thrown out of the window. If RIMM is smart they would take up Android and make over their entire system to be ultra-enterprise ready, but I doubt it.
Integration problems?
With the cost of gas, I bet those buses ARE a problem….
Wait a minute, I was wrong.
Google can afford gas….
lest anyone forget:
apple delayed the launch of OS X 10.5 by over six months in order to work on the iPhone OS.
it was a brilliant and strategic move which apple was given an opportunity to do by the delays Microsoft encountered in launching Vista.
google has delayed nothing yet. “2nd half 2008” and “4th quarter 2008” are the same.
wait a minute, mark
are you trying to tell me that if Google announces a release in the twelfth month it will be the same, too?
how stupid do you think I am?…..
Maybe in time for Apple’s iPhone 3G part 2.
In all seriousness, Google will go through the headaches of trying to balance and support carriers and manufacturers instead of dictating their own terms. It will come. I welcome a 3 player cell world with Google, BlackBerry and Apple. All three are respectable companies and will, in different ways, drive each other to the consumer’s benefit. BlackBerry and Apple do have the advantage of making both the hardware and software. Google will offer a much different product than Apple as well – it will be ad-supported – meaning it will be cheaper but the user will need to accept seeing a lot of advertising….
2nd half means 2nd half. 12/31 is still 2nd half, isn’t it? 1/1/09 isn’t, though.
mark and Noodles
according to the story here on MDN, Google originally planned to have phones on the market by the 2nd half not released in the 2nd half.
For me, it’s all vaporware till it’s released.
Good job Google.
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Oh wow. They plan to develop an entire operating system for Android from November to July, a scant 7 months. That’s pretty good considering that it took years to develop OSX (iPhone) and Windows Mobile (dumb phones).
I’m using the term “develop” rather loosely when talking about anything Windows. It’s more like “kluge together”.
Google Android sounds like a Douglas Adams character.
MDN – a subscription to read the full article is no longer required.
Peace.
Thank you, Mark & Noodles!
I was afraid I was the only reader not so clouded by the Mac-fog to miss that. Yes, the fourth quarter is part of the second half. And yes, phones were planned to ship in the “second half”, so that’s still on schedule. Way to blow it, WSJ!
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9957485-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave
Wingsy: Google bought the company that had been developing Android almost 3 years ago. The company had been working on the OS for almost 2 years prior to that.
3+ years is a lot longer than 7 months.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm