Scott builds Software

The Android Fleet

Tonight I read that Android’s market share has outpaced iPhone in the US. Thought so.

Google wants to see an ad on every screen, just like Microsoft saw a PC on every desktop 30 years ago. A well engineered, free O/S is highly addictive to the carrier and mobile phone companies. They’re pumping out Android-based phones faster than Ford used to dump Taurus’s into the backlots of Hertz. Volume, baby, volume. Move those phones!

Yet Google is tackling an enormous technical challenge. The O/S must run on a myriad of hardware, software, network and devices configurations. That’s hard. We see the result in the seams, a lack of polish here, a rough edge there, all in the name of finding a lowest common denominator. What runs best across all these configurations? They need an army of engineers.

Apple is the yellow car, the purple cow amidst a sea of me-too clones. There are less than a dozen Apple configurations today. That’s a lot simpler than Google’s OS integration challenge. As a result, Steve can pour intense resources on getting all the edge cases right, polishing to the nth degree. The result is beauty, luxury, taste.

In the end, I bet Google makes more money and dominates the market. They’re the new Ford. Apple will be BMW — with a tad higher market cap. What do you drive?

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