Can Company-Controlled Keep Up With Open Source? Am I a Slave to Android?
The answer is obviously yes for mature, marquee projects. Example: Microsoft Windows and Office, OSX, and Adobe Creative Suite. But what about immature applications lacking company’s corporate commitment?
Amazon’s about to expand the Android user base in a big way by taking advantage of the open-source nature of the underlying OS. CyanogenMod is installed on more than a million handsets, ridding phones of their carrier and manufacturer influences.
As has been written elsewhere, Google controls Android by controlling certain of the apps users expect, and denying their inclusion with distributions the company doesn’t bless. For example, Gmail, which everyone but luddites use, and the Android Marketplace, selling locally grown apps to hipsters and the nonorganic variety to everyone else.
Amazon doesn’t care. Amazon has developed its own app swap meet, a thriving ecosystem that circumvents what Google’s selling. Now Amazon’s pushing the hot hardware that will carry its app store exclusively. Google didn’t “allow” it to run its marketplace. Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank, collecting royalties on millions of Kindle-branded devices Google thinks beneath it
I’m a BlackBerry fan from back in the day, and I love my brand-new Bold 9930. Still, shit, I know what I’m missing. QNX-based BlackBerrys are not going to be Android, or even iPhone, slayers. Talk of LTE-capable QNX BlackBerrys at least six months prior to their release says it all. LTE is now. QNX is stillborn. Long live QNX. Pity the iPhone 5, which will be a hit because it’s an iPhone 5. Unfortunately the CDMA and HSPA networks are crowded, while LTE is wide open spaces. Where do you want to drive, even before talking speed limits?
Most surprising to me is that Samsung et al can’t figure out how to produce a solid portrait device with a great keyboard. I swear this is not that difficult, but what do I know. I know the new Bold has a better keyboard than any device I’ve used.
That may the key to preventing RIM’s extinction, at least for now. The Playbook, RIM’s 7-inch tablet running QNX, is capable of running Android applications, owing in no small part to their sharing a Linux heritage. Should QNX-based BlackBerry devices be capable of the same, they’ve gained access to a large developer community. The community BlackBerry is now missing. Should RIM continue to create best-in-class hardware, that’s a winning combination, particularly when that hardware is a form factor Apple, and Samsung and the rest, have neglected.
Of course, Samsung isn’t going to ignore a form factor that’s successful for others. As a certain friend says, Samsung is about copying the best of what’s out there. He may be prejudiced against Korean companies, but he’s not wrong.
I didn’t mean to write RIM’s obituary, and after using BlackBerrys for other a decade, I certainly don’t wish the platform dead. Still, I’m not god, and RIM’s development timelines are notoriously long and inflexible. We may have the great QNX LTE BlackBerry we want today a year from now. I’m just preparing for that day by getting started on digging its grave now
