The Birth of a New Android?

Insider Lite from TalkingPointz

A key difference between Android and iOS is that Android is an open-source model. Not only are individuals and companies freely able to use it, but they can also contribute to it. This is why Android is so much more popular than iOS.

Google’s ultimate control and monetitizaton over Android involves access to its Play store. That is not open or free. However, thousands of Android versions do fine without the Play Store - this includes the various versions of Android on Chinese smartphones, as well as hundreds of products from cars to smart TVs that use the core Android OS as its operating system.

Companies embrace open source to expand market reach strategically, foster innovation through collaborative development, reduce costs by leveraging community contributions, build robust ecosystems, enhance brand reputation, and more. By open-sourcing software, companies can attract a larger user base, benefit from faster bug fixes and security improvements, and sometimes strategically commoditize competitor technologies, ultimately leading to greater adoption and long-term success. However, open is open, so competitors can use it too.

Google recently took a turn on its open commitment, and moved all work to its internal branch. This effectively cuts-off external contributions to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The company says its new centralized approach will reduce conflicts and speed-up innovation.

While Android remains open, outside developers can no longer contribute or preview changes. This change suspiciously arrived a month after Microsoft released its version of Android, MDEP (Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform). Coincidence?

It seems like Google is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. This change will not affect MDEP or other implementations. It would not surprise us if Microsoft twists the knife and creates MOSP (MDEP Device Ecosystem Platform) for open source feedback on MDEP. Though technically, Microsoft hasn’t open-sourced MDEP (yet). It seems inevitable that MDEP will become the most popular version of Android without the Play store in enterprises worldwide.

[This Insider Lite is the free newsletter from TalkingPointz. The paid newsletter is available only from TalkingPointz directly. The March Insider, published last week, offers twelve pages of opined enterprise comms news that occured during March, including EC25.]