Of course it will be months (more likely years) until we see if the internal integration issues can be navigated such that this acquisition is deemed a success but now that everyone has the perspective of a whole day behind them, people have had the chance to take a long(er) look (rather than a quick pass) at yesterday’s announcement and start to figure out how it’s going to affect the other major players in the space.
Nat Torkington of O’Reilly has a thoughtful piece on < a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/06/nokia-to-buy-and-open-source-s.html">the state of mobile open source. He even throws a shoutout to dodgeball using a new word to describe the whole affair:
Nokia has hired some absolute geniuses from the ubiquitous computing world to bring network services into people’s lives through the mobile phone, whereas Google’s social acquisition, Dodgeball, was a catastrophe.
Strong words. At least the word “geniuses” also appears somewhere in the sentence, right?
Michael Mace over at Mobile Opportunity has a really great article breaking down exactly what happened, to whom, and who’s better off because of it. If you read one article about the acquisition, I’d read this one. Here’s a quick glimpse at how he sees it affecting the other major players:
What does it mean to Apple? I think it’s probably good news. Although the Symbian partners could theoretically bleed Apple by sharing investments that Apple has to fund for itself, Apple competes on speed and elegance, not cost control. Nokia and Symbian will now spend the next six months sorting out how they’ll integrate and rationalize their organizations. No matter how much they try to avoid it, this will slip schedules and force people to revisit plans. And the other Symbian licensees have to wait two years for the new OS. That gives Apple a long, long time to build up its iPhone business. The Register put it very bluntly in its commentary on the Symbian announcement (link):
“Apple must now see a clear road ahead for world dominance…it’s now Apple’s business to lose.”
Wow, from new entrant to industry leader in just a year. That sort of stuff must drive Nokia nuts.
Is Google happy or upset tonight? My first reaction is to say that Google should be worried because there’s now another very credible operating system being given away for free in competition with Android (or there will be in two years). What’s more, the leading mobile handset companies all participated in the Symbian Foundation announcement. That makes it harder for Android to get licensees. But the new open Symbian OS is two years away from shipment, giving Google lots of runway to get established (that’s what I meant about execution determining the real impact of the announcement). Also, the governance system for Android is a lot simpler than Symbian’s. While the Symbian committees must debate and agree on product plans, Google can just decide whatever features it wants to add, and toss them out there. In theory, Google should be able to move much faster.
Besides, there is the question of why Google really created Android. One school of thought says that Android was just a tool to bleed Microsoft and force openness in the mobile ecosystem. If that’s the goal, then the opening up of Symbian is a kind of a triumph for Google. Nokia is, in many ways, doing Google’s work for it.