Microsoft might have sold hundreds of millions of Windows 7 licenses, and Apple might be managing to persuade tens of millions of people to buy iOS-powered devices every quarter, but the real winner when it comes to operating systems in 2011 as been Android, Google’s mobile operating system.
Based on the Linux kernel, Android is a wildly successful platform. By November of this year some 200 million Android powered devices were in use. If that sounds impressive, consider that this number is growing by some 550,000 daily (or 3.85 million a week, 16.5 million a month). Also, last quarter Apple sold 17 million iPhones and 11 million iPads over the three month period.
Despite Google not charging handset makers a dime for Android, the mobile platform is a huge money spinner for the company. Android pulled in some $2.5 billion for Google during its last financial year (all from ads), and this number is set to double during this financial year. As the number of Android devices out in the wild increase (and the number of eyeballs looking at the ads increase), then this figure will keep on growing.
Then there are the 10 billion app downloads. That’s a staggering number, and at the equivalent point in the Apple App Store’s life cycle, it had only managed around half this number of download. What’s more impressive is realizing that Google only broke the 3 billion mark back in March of this year, so that’s 7 billion in around 8 months (it took Google 20 months to hit the billion download mark in July 2010).
There may be issues that Google need to address when it comes to Android, but we can’t allow this to take away from the successes achieved by the mobile platform. Apple might be grabbing the limelight with iOS and the iDevices it is installed on, but Android is the platform for the masses.
Android is, without a doubt, the most successful Linux distro out there. And it’s only going to go from strength to strength come 2012.
Reed more at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/2011-the-year-of-the-android-os/17021
but Android is the platform for the masses… LOL
That remind me something 😉
Yankee Group predicts that Android will continue its march in 2012, and will become a serious enterprise mobility player (however, Yankee also believes RIM will continue to be strong, which is in contrast to some other analysts): http://appcarousel.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/yankee-groups-2012-mobile-industry-projections-and-predictions/
Android is to scattered with all the different versions around.
Application developers are also bothered by that.
And they are the driving force, at this moment there is much more profit to be made on IOS.
The new Kindle is also not a full fledged Android tablet and people will see that after their first moment of pleasure (see how many Wii’s are gaining dust now).
And there is the ongoing battle against Android with all the patent infringing going on.
It’s not mature enough, it became to popular to early.
There are actually 700,000 Android activation per day now.
Even if you have 10x more Android devices than iOS ones. Each device will be different, so developers will have to develop adaptative code and to test on 10s of devices (how? they’ll have to buy each ones and test on!)?
This is the key difference, you’ll never get developers building simple apps -but very efficient, nice…- “just because” it’s easy to test them.
So, as long as there is no leading device (let’s say with 1/2 of iOS market for itself alone), you’ll never get a strong market for Android devices… because of lack of apps.
My vision for Android future is on 2 ways:
1/ For companies imposing ONE device to their employees with a strict set of applications on it and no way to install anything else on. Such companies are clearly old-fashioned ones you have to move away from.
2/ Android will be the Linux OS for mobile systems: you’ll get it everywhere, embedded, but you’ll never see it. It will be easy for developers to build radios, alarm clocks, vacuum cleaners… with Android in it. But you’ll never install apps by yourself in.
MS is clearly not an alternative to iOS. They forgot one thing (as with Windows…): security! As soon as you have a file system, any app can access data managed by others. So, for security reasons, you’ll have to install anti-virus systems and a disk encryption system (to avoid your data to be copied if your device is lost or stolen). As a result, you’ll lost 30-50% of your performances, so, you’ll have to use faster CPUs, conuming lot more energy, so, you’ll have less autonomy or heavier batteries. Welcome back to the horrible world of Windows based laptops not able to run more than 1:30 / 2:00 our of power!