Android OS: Success Story
Saifallah Qasim
Android is an operating system mainly developed for mobile devices but also has been seen on different internet tablets. This OS is built using the Linux kernel and is totally open source. It has been at first developed by Android Inc. but Google has purchased it and continued the development later on.
The main discussion here is the fact that such an open source platform evolved and actually made a huge success and what such thing tells us. I do believe that such projects incorporated with open source can deal massive damage to other proprietary platforms and software. For example the Apple iPhone was a huge deal and is so to this particular moment but since Android emerged, Apple has been on its toes since then.
The collaboration of a huge community worldwide, bugs tracking and continuous updates and fixes are the main pillars that supported such an open source idea to become what we see right now. Open source can and will succeed at the very end.
(CC-BY-NC-SA samuraispy)
Major mobile manufacturers have chosen Android just because of the simple fact that it's open source, what does that mean? It simply means that they can download the source code, manipulate it and do further developments and totally make it their own, and then simply put it on their mobiles. Just like that. HTC has done it first and then other major players joined; Samsung and Motorola. Sony Ericsson shall also join as well pretty soon. For those who don't know this, Motorola has been losing money for a while and, in my opinion, Android has saved them from taking more damage. They released couple of handsets which operate on Android and are receiving huge attention. Who would've thought that an open source OS could do such a thing for such a hug company as Motorola?
What amazes me though is, why wouldn't huge manufacturers such as HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba and so fourth do the same? I know I know hardware limitations and probably because it's free too. But can you imagine having a modified Linux distro just for your MSI laptop? Wouldn't that be great? It sure would, especially that you won't be spending as much as you would spend on Windows and the software that should follow.
Comments
There is a lot of criticism about the fact that although the android runs on open source, its not completely open. Because the carriers modify it in a way that you can't change the firmware of the phone with ease.
Check out the blog post in the LiMo foundation and my comment.
I didn't know that before, I certainly hope this would change with time, but if you could check the upcoming SE handset, you could see major changes to other Android handsets.
Reading these kind of posts reminds me of just how technology truly is something we cannot live without in this day and age, and I am 99% certain that we have passed the point of no return in our relationship with technology.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as memory becomes less expensive, the possibility of downloading our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's one of the things I really wish I could encounter in my lifetime.
Post new comment