Android

Last year, Google released its Android operating system,  to establish a beachhead in the mobile operating system space. That effort has been successful so far. It is almost certain that operating system dominance was not its only goal. Google also wanted to prevent Apple from completely dominating the app business. Google, no doubt, has seen the same trends discussed in this article and must r
ecognize that it will damage the future of its search franchise.

Android has already established that it is a viable mobile operating system. As a method to flank the Apple App Store, it has very little chance of succeeding. Google has had almost no success at getting a large number of high-end app developers to create software for its platform. Most of the innovative software continues to be created for the App Store. That is true because, among other things, Apple already has 50 million iPhones on the market. Developers have a limited amount of time to build applications. That makes it highly unlikely that any given developer will create separate apps for the iPhone, Android-based handsets, the Blackberry, Palm handsets, and Nokia products. Consequently, as the market leader gets the great majority of the attention. This is a deficit that Google will find increasingly difficult to overcome. However, the lack of a developer community for Android is a relatively small problem for Google.

Google’s Insurmountable Challenge

Google’s insurmountable challenge is that the habits of mobile device users are evolving and moving rapidly away from traditional search. By far the leading cause of this change is the expansion of the number of apps available at the App Store and the iPhone’s growing base of users. It is important to remember that several of the largest nations in the world are not places where Apple has carrier partners or where Apple has only set up partnerships recently. That almost certainly means that the growth trajectory of iPhone unit sales will at least continue on its current path, and may even accelerate.

The successful Apple app is essentially a tiny search engine in a box. It allows the user to efficiently manage their time by preselecting well-reviewed apps based on their interests. Google search may be able to take users to the same place that an app can, but the route will be longer and more uncertain. An iPhone loaded with two dozen apps carefully selected by the user eliminates Google as the primary middleman between the user’s search and their destination.

-Ashley C. Allen, Michael B. Sauter, Douglas A. McIntyre