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Ask HN :: Android + GAE + "C-Block" -- Has Google already won the "mobile phone wars"?
(please refrain from any Star Wars "Clone Wars" references with what follows...)
No doubt we are familiar with the "OS/Desktop Wars" that prevailed during the 80s. And of course there was the "Browser Wars" of the 90s. The 00s saw the "Search Wars" and it's clear who won here.
I'm betting that Google has already set the stage for the "Mobile Wars", and it's arguable that it might have already been preemptively won. If you combine Android, GAE, and the recent spectrum bidding Google has been involved with, it seems to me that Google has brilliantly staged the ultimate coup - well ahead of any battle taking place. Now anybody can combine the ease of use of creating an application on Android, along with the ability to (theoretically) scale gracefully through GAE , and then have the application widely accessible through the C-Block.
Any thoughts?
EDIT: changed the terse geeky headline to something more digestible...
- wmf 19y agoThe C block is Verizon's, so it will have no effect on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers. It's not a given IMO that Android will take off quickly. The market for smart phones (iPhone/BlackBerry) is small, and Android may not work well on cheap phones. But maybe the cheap phones won't participate in the "mobile war" (whatever that is) because those customers only use voice, SMS, and ringtones anyway. Let's say Verizon has 30% market share and 20% of their customers have smart phones and (magically) all those phones run Android; that's 6% of the total wireless maket (by volume).