Is Amazon Stealing Android from Google?
I have been watching with great fascination the moves Amazon has recently made with Android. Two weeks ago they launched the Amazon App store that focuses on Android apps and last week they announced their cloud based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has their own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing to Android a more structured store with room for users comments and reviews and the key step of vetting the apps they carry.
This is quite a strategic move by Amazon and one that could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google’s own approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that their customers, the OEM’s who license Android, are increasingly frustrated with Google’s lack of discipline in laying out a consistent roadmap for Android that they can follow.
At first they said they would have one version of Android for smartphones, and another for tablets. Now they say that they will merge both into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TV’s in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7” but less then 11 inches.
Part of the problem with Google and their Android strategy was their view that Android needed to be Open Source. That meant that Google would create the core source code and then vendors who used it could customize it to deliver various forms of differentiation. While that is great in concept, what it has led to is various levels of fragmentation within Android devices, apps and even services. Interestingly, Google’s main goal with Android is to get it on as many devices as possible and use it as a medium to deliver Google search and ads to millions of users around the world. As I understand it, they have an annual goal to bring in $10.00 of ARPU (average revenue per unit) annually by the end of 2012. If they could get Android on 1 billion smartphones, tablets, TV’s, car navigation systems, etc, that could mean as much as $10 billion annually to their bottom line sometime in the future if they achieve this level of success.
But since Google is an engineering driven company, the focus has always been about delivering an OS that meets the stated goals I mentioned, not necessarily to create a structured OS with strict guidelines and enforce rigid best practices to deliver a constant user experience between devices. And by using an Open Source model, they pushed Android in this direction from the beginning and now it is coming back to bite them in the form of serious fragmentation as well as causing continual frustration and angry feedback from the licensees.
There is a reason that Apple and Microsoft are extremely successful with their operating systems and why Linux has struggled to gain any market share beyond its use in servers and controllers. Apple’s has total control of the OS, UI and in their case, standardization of certain connectors that are part of their IP. That means that all hardware and software developers must subscribe to Apple’s strict rules and SDK structure in order for their products to work on Mac OS X and IOS. This makes sure users experiences on Apple products are consistent and always work.
The same goes for Microsoft’s Windows OS. Microsoft drives the SDK and best practice rules and is quite strict with OEM’s and ODM’s as to what can be done with Windows outside of its core OS and UI. This too brings great sanity to developers and users who know that each Window application will work the same on any Windows PC they use. No fragmentation here. But with Linux, multiple versions exist and with most it is customized for use on each device/application. There is no consistency to UI, thus any attempt at making it a desktop OS has failed so far.
This is why Amazon’s ventures with Android is so interesting. Even though Google will continue down this Open Source path and stumble and bumble through the process of continually delivering updated versions of a core OS, Amazon could become a major influence in which version goes mainstream and what software OS version developers support. More importantly, they could become the trusted source for applications and services and in the end, steal a lot of thunder from Google. In fact, I think that Amazon could become the major disruptor to Android and emerge as the eventual center of the Android universe.
In Google’s grand scheme, they may even like this. As I mentioned above, their goal is to get Android on as many devices as possible and use it to drive search and ads through this Google OS platform. At the moment they have not declared their own cloud music service, which is the one area that they could have concern with. But if they continue down a path in which the store is pretty much open and not vetted, then Amazon gives this audience a safe and structured approach to discovering and acquiring Android apps and ties them to services. And Amazon could drive more standardization within the Android development community as well.
BTW, some were surprised that Amazon only announced their cloud based storage and music service tied to songs bought through the Amazon store. Many had hoped for a broader initiative from them. But we hear that Amazon decided to beat Apple to the punch with the cloud and music store service knowing full well that Apple will do something similar but something more. It is the “something more” that is still a mystery, but it appears that while Amazon may have more to offer in the future themselves, they are going to wait to see what Apple does with their cloud services when it is announced sometime this summer before showing more of their products and strategy of their own. But you can bet it will be tied to Android when they do.
The Amazon App store is already a big hit. And it is on track to become the most trusted source for acquiring apps for any Android device. If Amazon continues down this path towards greater influence with users and developers, it really could become the trusted source for Android guidance, apps and connected services.
Industry Impact
If this scenario plays out as we expect, OEM’s need to seriously consider getting behind Amazon’s efforts, especially their App Store and leverage Amazon’s reputation and consumer acceptance as a serious arbiter for the Android Community. It is our view that Amazon will become not only a trusted source for consumers to buy products and get Android information, we are also convinced their service play, that starts with their cloud music service will eventually expand to other areas such as device-to-device synchronization and other forms of cloud service offerings.
Although we believe Google will move in a similar direction, we are not convinced that Google will emerge as a trusted source for consumers given their refusal to vet their apps and how they keep changing directions with their Android OS platforms. The industry needs a powerhouse driving stability within Android and Amazon has, at least on paper, the best chance of bringing what I call adult supervision to the Android market.
