Smartphone makers were mindlessly going down the wrong path, in lock-step, with gobs of buttons and even a trackball on their offerings. With fresh thinking, derived from tablet work they had been doing, Apple shook the phone manufacturers out of their stupor with a touch-based phone. And then, predictably, came the imitations...
Advertising company Google took it upon themselves to offer a smartphone operating system free to the manufacturing community, where Google would be the ultimate beneficiary of ads that would proliferate on such handsets. Adopters would be free to tailor it however they wanted. Google defined this as "open" — despite Android development being utterly closed and solely Google's effort. Google defined this as freedom. Either they didn't perceive this as a Bad Idea, or didn't care.
Android lives in a marketsphere where handset makers largely do whatever they want in competing with one another, and in a higher layer the cellular carriers enforce their own dictates on what should appear on the phone. This is all about differentiation, to distinguish one offering from another, to attempt to out-do the competition. This is promoted to the buying public as diversity and "choice", made to seem like an ideal thing for consumers. It's not.
The goal of manufacturers and carriers is steady revenue. That is accomplished by "churn", where the consumer is enticed by phones which are continually changing and adding supposed advanced features. In the Android environment, there are new phones appearing all the time. These phones are literally "plastic", to be regarded as "throwaway" by both the vendors and the buying public. Worse, new features are often deceptive, being inadequately engineered but pushed out as though they were fully realized. This has been seen with movie capture claiming to be HD, but can't do so at 30 images per second. And there have been supposedly high resolution display technology which employ "cheats" to get away with a lower-cost version of the technology which in fact results in lower resolution. The manufacturers are not interested in customer satisfaction or overall quality of experience.
Another technique to make the consumer itch to abandon their current phone for a new one is to withhold operating system upgrades. Handset makers are the progentors of the operating system which goes on their phones, not Google. An OS upgrade gets to the consumer only if the handset maker decides to devote the effort to adapt a newer level of Android to their tailored, differentiated phone software. And, beyond that, the cellular carrier has to decide if is in their best interest to convey that OS update to their phone customers. The track record shows that most Android based phones are running a version of the operating system which is behind the currently available version — sometimes by multiple generations. (A January 19, 2011 report finds that less than one half of one percent of Android handsets are running Gingerbread 2.3, Google's latest iteration of its mobile operating system. 51.8 percent of Android phones are equipped with version 2.2, also known as Froyo, while 35.2 percent are loaded with Android 2.1. Astonishingly, nearly 13 percent of handsets are still running versions 1.6 and 1.5, two of Android's older versions.) It would be contrary to the objective of churn for the handset maker to keep the consumer's phone current and viable for several years. Making the latest version of Android available only on new phones encourages the acquisition of the latest hardware; and it leaves the customer unable to run recent apps, and makes for a situation where stagnant software becomes an increasing privacy and security risk for the end user, with no updates. Consider also that Android phones are being used in corporate environments, and that magnifies the security issues. Keep in mind that handset makers modify Android, and that they typically don't employ operating system geniuses to do so, which can introduce major security exposures in a given brand: one example was the 2011/10/03 HTC debacle, where modifications they made allowed any program on a phone with Internet access to have access to almost all data on the device. (And, HTC didn't even bother responding to researchers who found the security exposure; so the researchers went public to incite action.) Overall, this is a philosophy of artificially creating increasing dissatisfaction with one's current handset.
Over time, all this diversity inevitably creates ever-increasing fragmentation in this marketsphere. A large number of phone models with diverse specifications, a spectrum of Android levels in the wild, and every phone maker adding their own interface on top of Android makes it a nightmare for app developers to provide software which will work on some subset of all these phones. Developers have to choose whether to make only a lowest common denominator version of their app, resulting in a dissatisfyingly lesser product; or they can devote staff, money, and time to develop for as many versions of Android phones as they can. Out in the field, two Android users coming together and comparing apps may be unsettled to find the app running differently on their two, differing phones. All this can only get worse over time. Consider also the proliferation of application software stores for Android, as in Amazon opening their own, which further fragments things. Before going down a path, one must consider the ramifications of the chosen approach.
For corroboration, see an increasing number of industry articles on the
realities of Android, such as:
I'm sick to death of Android
Microsoft has accumulated an infamous track record for software development, accompanied by slow response to problems, denials, arrogance, and customers exasperated with crippled functionality and security exposures. That has carried forward into their WP7 era, as well; and in addition to plaguing end users, it is also problematic for carriers and phone manufacturers since the launch of WP7 devices in October of 2010 in Europe, and November in the U.S.
In January 2011 it became well publicized that something going on in Windows Phone 7 handsets was causing large volumes of data to be transmitted out of the phone, resulting in data usage overages and extra carrier charges for some fraction of the WP7 population. During the week of January 16th, Microsoft would say only that this was due to a "third party application", with no further information about a coming fix or a circumvention to help WP7 users do anything to prevent the costly problem. Only after technical pursuits by customers, identifying the culprit as Yahoo Mail, did Microsoft belatedly admit this, on January 31st. ("Coindidentally", Yahoo is a Microsoft partner.) Yahoo then went on the defense, issuing the statement:
"Yahoo! Mail is widely available on tens of millions of mobile phones, including those running on Apple iOS, Android, Nokia Symbian, and RIM. The issue on the Windows Phones is specific to how Microsoft chose to implement IMAP for Yahoo! Mail and does not impact Yahoo! Mail on these other mobile devices. Yahoo! has offered to provide Microsoft a near-term solution for the implementation they chose, and is encouraging Microsoft to change to a standard way of integrating with Yahoo! Mail, which would result in a permanent fix."That resulted in finger-pointing between the two companies, while users suffered. (The problem was found to involve the unusual way in which Microsoft was using IMAP to ask for mail messages information, and Yahoo sending back more information about the mail than was asked for.) Resolution took further weeks. All this could have been avoided had Microsoft conducted properly comprehensive testing. And they could have greatly reduced the impact by promptly responding to reports of the problem.
February 2011 brought a fiasco involving belated updates to WP7. On February 21st, Microsoft finally started rolling out its long awaited first update to WP7 phones. Just what was in the update was unclear, as MS decided to not publicize its nature: it seemed to be an update to the updater process — a minor update, not the functionality update that all WP7 users had long been waiting for (and now seems scheduled for some time in March). Soon thereafter, reports of "bricked" Samsung Omnia 7 and Focus phone models started appearing: some updates were simply failing to proceed, but others went on to currupt the firmware and leave the phone unusable. Those with unusable phones were being told to return them to their place of purchase, for replacement — along with all your un-backed-up data. (MS's statement on this: "If your device is in an unrecoverable state, you should contact your mobile operator or device manufacturer regarding your options for repairing your device.") Microsoft's statement at the time was that they were investigating the problem; but there were no intentions to halt the distribution. On February 23, Microsoft issued a further statement, claiming that the company had pulled the first update for Samsung WP7s. The following statement was issued by their spokesperson, after being pressed:
"We have identified a technical issue with the Windows Phone update process that impacts a small number of phones. In response to this emerging issue, we have temporarily taken down the latest software update for Samsung phones in order to correct the issue and as soon as possible will redistribute the update."Public reports contradicted that cessation of distribution: the faulty update was still available. Here again we have the case of Microsoft's deficient testing resulting in major, public problems. It also further states the case that attempting to architect software in the abstract is highly problematic, unlike the scenario where the vendor provides an end-to-end solution in engineering the hardware and software together.
Windows Phone suffers from a fundamental flaw: it's boring and uninspiring. With other platforms you feel like you're with a vibrant, inspired provider. With Windows Phone, the name itself with "Windows" in it is a put-off, and that it's from a bureaucratic company like Microsoft seals the impression. For corroboration, see Windows Phone: The passionless platform.
Around September 10, 2010, Nokia removed its CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, and replaced him with Microsoft executive Stephen Elop, from MS's Business division. Elop, who is from Canada, is the first non-Finnish CEO of Nokia in its 145 year history. At the time, everyone wondered how much Elop would perform like a Microsoft executive rather than someone now in the Nokia fold. The answer came on Wednesday February 9, 2011 as a memorandum written to Nokia's staff by Elop became public, wherein Elop summarized Nokia's diminished presence in the electronics market as contending with "a burning platform" (offshore oil rig fire metaphor). He referred to their Symbian smartphone operating environment as "non-competitive"; and he expressed disappointment in their MeeGo software platform initiative with Intel. While making the analogy of surviving a burning oil platform, it was clear that "platform" also referred to their failing phone operating systems. With all that in place, and his lineage, it was therefore no surprise that Elop on Friday, February 11th announced that Nokia would abandon Symbian and MeeGo to instead adopt Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, in a deal where MS will give Nokia billions of dollars as a perk for their move to a Microsoft environment.
The impact on Nokia employees morale was apparent, as evidenced by vocal protests and a walkout. A large number of people are effectively being told that their efforts to support the direction of the company are wholly unappreciated. Further, they realize that many staffers are becoming surplus and will lose their jobs, as Microsoft will now write the operating system that is to go onto Nokia phones. One can only wonder how present and contemplative Nokia phone buyers will view the shift to a Microsoft OS on Nokia phones. It is clear, however, that investors think ill of the move, as Nokia's stock plunged after the announcement (8% on Thursday, another 13% Friday, for a $8.7 billion loss in market value), recognizing that though Nokia's state was bad before the announcement, it has the prospect of being far worse over the next 12 months as Nokia works to transition to Windows Phone OS and the public is unlikely to want to buy any more products within a platform whose end has been announced. Their next shareholders meeting in May 2011 should be "interesting". By then, a lot of talent may have left Nokia. And keep in mind as well that the corporate culture and many managers who brought Nokia to this state remain firmly in place. Knowing the direction Nokia would take, on February 8th, Google vice president Vic Gundotra posted a message on his Twitter account that said: #feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle."
To further emphasize the move to a Microsoft alliance: On February 12th, Nokia's US division president, Mark Louison, was quickly replaced by 15-year Microsoft sales and marketing veteran Chris Weber.