In fall 2007, a group of companies announced something very ambitious for the future of mobile telecommunication. This group wanted to change the way people communicate & access information. It was called the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). OHA, led by Google, included many giants: device manufacturers (like Motorola, LG and Samsung), semiconductor companies (like Intel, Qualcomm, Nuance and Texas Instruments), mobile operators(like China Mobile, Telefonica, T-Mobile and NTT DoCoMo) as well as software and commercialization companies.
Google’s chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said, "This partnership will help unleash the potential of mobile technology for billions of users around the world. A fresh approach to fostering innovation in the mobile industry will help shape a new computing environment that will change the way people access and share information in the future. Today's announcement is more ambitious than any single 'Google Phone' that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks. Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models."
Fast forward to today. The alliance still exists and many more giants like Vodafone, ARM, Huawei, Sony Ericsson and others have joined it. But, what have they accomplished? Agreed that the currently available mobile devices provide a much richer experience. But, its credit goes to Apple, not to Google.
OHA promised the goal of “Open Software, Open Device, Open Ecosystem”. Let’s review these one by one.
Open Software:
The real openness can be achieved only if everything related to Android is open sourced. The aim of OHA was similar. All partners agreed to contribute back to Android community. Going by the current situation, all device manufacturers have their own customizations. Most of them don’t share the source code because it is considered a differentiator. So much for the ‘openness’ of open software.
Open Ecosystem:
The key ecosystem players are: Device manufacturers, Mobile operators and Software firms/individuals.
For an open ecosystem, a customer should be able to use any mobile operator with any device and load it with any compatible software application. The main problems seen in mobile market were: Operator–Device lock (mainly in US) and Device–Software lock. Both these locks were expected to be broken by OHA.
The Device-Software lock is similar to the Open Device topic discussed below.
The Operator-Device lock exists mainly in US and is still intact. Google tried to sell Nexus-One without an operator lock. This effort failed miserably because US market is used to the discounts that come with locked phones.
Except the US (and few more countries), the Operator-Device ecosystem has always been fairly open.
So far, OHA has been unable to set a new business model to facilitate open ecosystem. Almost all device manufacturers still sell operator-locked phones.
Open Device: (Most important aspect of OHA)
This, in my opinion, is the most important aspect of OHA. World over, mobile devices are significantly closed and controlled either by the manufacturer or the mobile operator or both.
An open device is one where the owner can control what to install and how to use. Although Google has been against Apple’s closed system, even the Android devices are not completely open.
Device manufacturers do not give complete control of devices to users. Why do manufacturers restrict root access? Even Google’s Nexus One doesn’t allow it.
Recently, Motorola was on the receiving end when developers protested against its restrictions on usage of custom ROMs. Motorola’s logic ‘Business Reasons’ was clearly not acceptable to customers and prospective customers.
We are far from a really open mobile handset device.
If Android has achieved something, it is only the creation of a formidable competition to Apple’s iPhone.
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