Google pushes open mobile platform at FTC event

By Mickey Alam Khan

May 7, 2008

Google collaboration through the Open Handset Alliance

WASHINGTON – Google’s point person on mobile products made a forceful case yesterday for openness at the Federal Trade Commission’s exploratory event on mobile marketing.

Rich Miner, Cambridge, MA-based group manager for mobile platforms at Google, used his company’s open-sourced Android platform to influence FTC officials and attorneys and representatives from handset makers, wireless carriers, mobile service providers, trade organizations and consumer groups.

“When someone controls a platform, it stifles innovation,” Mr. Miner told a packed room of about 200. “You can see this with the desktop PC. We just want a level-playing field.”

He drilled his point on a panel of companies who are intent on making sure their platforms win the day: Yahoo, Nokia and Opera Software. They all presented their models and technology at the FTC’s “Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace” event.

Mr. Miner spoke up for the Android platform, which is a set of software for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and mobile applications. It has the backing of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of 34 manufacturers, carriers, content providers and software developers contributing code.

The Android project was designed with making mobile easier – better keyboards, larger screens, innovation in touch and better applications.

Google has backed this effort with $10 million in cash prizes for software developers who build compelling applications for Android.

In fact, Google will soon become one of the largest contributors of open source code, Mr. Miner said.

“It’s not about the Google phone,” Mr. Miner said. “It’s really about understanding the industry.”

Pressing the numbers
The need for this openness was stressed with statistics. There are 1 billion Internet users worldwide versus almost 2.8 billion mobile phone users.

Countries such as the United States, Mr. Miner said, are a two-screen economy, meaning that consumers use both the computer and the mobile phone.

“In many parts of the world, it’s a one-screen economy,” Mr. Miner said.

Essentially, the mobile phone is it for many parts of the world.

The number of mobile phones in use worldwide dwarfs the number of televisions, credit cards, fixed-line phones and consumers who drive automobiles.

Also, only 200 million new PCs are sold each year. By contrast, 1 billion new mobile phones are sold annually.

Mr. Miner told the audience to expect their next phones to include sophisticated features. The average life of a mobile phone in the U.S. is 18 months, he said.

“Your next phones will be as powerful as the computer,” he said.

Not for smooth operators?
Each technology’s mass adoption lowers the cost of manufacture and sale. So why is it that the consumers aren’t seeing the dropping costs as hardware becomes cheaper, Mr. Miner asked?

Software costs.

Software approaches between 20 percent and 25 percent of the cost of the average handset.

“We haven’t really treated these devices as open PCs,” Mr. Miner said. “One of our goals has been to promote openness in the industry. This message of openness is resonating very nicely in the industry.”

Of course, it is also in line with Google’s oft-stated mission to “organize the world’s information.”

Besides, it aligns well with plans to make Google available everywhere, anywhere.

But this evangelism of openness is “scary to incumbent operators,” Mr. Miner admitted.

He proposed the Internet model to allay the fears of carriers who risk being cut out of the loop with an open model. He expects advertising to support the open model, coming dangerously close to pushing Google’s model onto mobile.

“We can help people to contextually and relevantly generate some revenue from it,” Mr. Miner said.

“The key issue is a lack of openness from the operators and [the] business models,” he said.

He cited complex signup procedures for software developers or content providers to get their applications on handsets and carriers. Why shouldn’t it be more liked the Internet instead of such “closed platforms”?

Moreover, the enablers aren’t there either from a building perspective, Mr. Miner said.

“The goal is to help clean up some of this confusion,” Mr. Miner said.