Google Android - the iPhone's biggest threat

Shortly after the Google Android phone was announced in late 2008, Microsoft's Steve Balmer commented "I don't get it. There's no revenue model." In one sense he was right, Google is not going to make money from selling phones, but that was never the plan. Google's vision is much bigger.

For Google the launch of the Android mobile phone platform was a preemptive strike. It already dominates the desktop Internet search market. It's now positioned to also achieve dominance in the mobile Internet segment. If successful this move could massively accelerate the company's already prodigious growth.

Android is an open source platform that makes accessing the Internet from a mobile phone easy. Its functionality and capabilities are similar to the iPhone. It is also FREE, which means that it is more than possible that Android will become the defacto mobile phone platform. Google Internet apps will then become even more ubiquitous. They will be preloaded onto hundreds of millions or even billions of mobile phones.

Google's agenda is to have the Android become ubiquitous as quickly as possible and the best way of achieving that is to make it freely available to anyone and everyone. The source code was released without restrictions. Development is now in the hands of a passionate open source community.

With a relatively small investment, Google has succeeded in kick starting a development that could put Google applications on nearly all mobile phones. The prize is dominance of both desktop and mobile Internet use for decades to come.

HTC together with T-Mobile USA were first to release a Google Android phone. The G1 was released in October 2008. Kogan Agora releasing its phones in December. Many more Android mobile phones are expected to be released during 2009 and 2010. It's anticipted that they will be rediculously cheap compared with other smartphones such as iPhones and Blackberries. The cheaper the better from Google's perspective.

Apple, RIM and others are no doubt tuned into the latest Google Android news. Their challenge will be to compete with a raft of phones that offer equivalent or better features at a significantly lower price point.

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