Google Android – Road to nowhere.

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There is little point in updating software that just sits on the shelf.

• The Android community is already getting excited about the features that will be available on the next version of Android regardless of the fact that few will have access to it for years.
• Split screen support and more precise control of app permissions are on the top of the list of upgrades.
• This will bring Android more closely into line with what iOS can offer but if it is not in the hands of users, it is useless.
• This underlines the single biggest problem that Google faces.
• Google has virtually no control over how and when its software is distributed and installed on the vast majority of its devices.
• This means that if operators and handset vendors do not want to update their devices, there is very little that Google can do about it.
• Some handset vendors do not want to update their existing devices because they fear that it will dis-incentivise users from buying a new handset.
• This is a major reason why 99.5% of all Android devices remain on older versions of the code meaning that almost all Android users are not benefitting from Google’s latest innovations.
• In contrast, iOS 9 is already on 80.2% of all iOS devices despite the update being made available at roughly the same time.
• Effectively, new versions of Android are really only appearing on new devices ensuring that vertical fragmentation (different versions of the same code) will continue to persist for the foreseeable future.
• RFM research indicates that Google’s ecosystem enjoys less usage and lower loyalty than iOS largely due to usability issues and endemic software fragmentation.
• In order to fix this Google needs to take control of the user experience by exerting greater control over Android itself but while it is incapable of distributing the updates, they are next to useless.
• To make matters worse, it gives competitors time to copy Google’s innovations and get them into the market long before Google can do so itself.
• I have long believed that the only way in which Google can fix this is by taking complete control of both the software code as well as its distribution.
• This spells the end of open source within the Android camp and I suspect that in a few years iAndroid will simply be a series of proprietary ecosystems sitting on top of a tiny Android / Linux kernel.
• This will make life much harder for developers as the differences between the different ecosystems on Android will become much greater, making supporting them more difficult.
• However, all Google really cares about is collecting traffic on its servers and keeping users in its ecosystem.
• This approach is the only way in which this is likely to be achieved and I fully expect Google to close Android down in the medium term.
• This is bad news for the Android alternates like Cyanogen, Xiaomi and anyone else building ecosystems on Android as they will have to do far more coding in the future for the same amount of money.
• In the meantime Google’s ecosystem remains vulnerable to market share loss which has already occurred in some volumes at the high end.
• These are not the only cracks appearing in the Google ecosystem which taken together makes it look more vulnerable than it has ever been.
• The door has never been more open but competitors like Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo appear unable to rise to the challenge.
• I continue to think that Google shares have run past their fair value and I prefer Microsoft and Samsung in the short-term and Facebook in the long-term.