Broadband Developments

Android is now open source.  Android will change the nature of communications and collaboration only if the apps get developed. The success of the Apple App store is a strong indicator that the Google Android marketplace for apps will be a home run.

Why? Two reasons: 1) apps are need on the edge of the network and 2) developers can succeed on this platform because of open source.

Android is the first free, open source, and fully customizable mobile platform. Android offers a full stack: an operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows third-party developers to develop great applications.

To get started with the source code, see Get source.

If you are an application developer, visit the Android SDK site.

Video of program is here

here is the info from Google on Android

Today is a big day for Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and the open-source community.  All of the work that we’ve poured into the mobile platform is now officially available, for free, as the Android Open Source Project.

You’ll be hearing a lot about Android devices.  We’ve all put a lot of effort into the first Android device, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  But one device is just the beginning.

Android is not a single piece of hardware; it’s a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations.  Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications.  And with an Android device already on the market, it has proven that it has what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena.

Even if you’re not planning to ship a mobile device any time soon, Android has a lot to offer.  Interested in working on a speech-recognition library?  Looking to do some research on virtual machines?  Need an out-of-the-box embedded Linux solution?  All of these pieces are available, right now, as part of the Android Open Source Project, along with graphics libraries, media codecs, and some of the best development tools I’ve ever worked with.

Have a great idea for a new feature?  Add it!  As an open source project, the best part is that anyone can contribute to Android and influence its direction.  And if the platform becomes as ubiquitous as I hope it will, you may end up influencing the future of mobile devices as a whole.

This is an exciting time for Android, and we’re just getting started.  It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes in the mobile industry.  But we want to do more than just keep up;  we want to lead the way, to try things out, to add the new features that everyone else is scrambling to keep up with.  But we can’t do it without your help.

What will you do with Android?

Walt Mossberg has a detailed review on the Android gPhone.  This past weekend Loren Feldman had a review.  These two reviews cut across the spectrum from Loren to Walt.

Here is Walt Mossberg’s review

Here is Loren Feldman’s review

Some text hightlights…

I have been testing the G1 extensively, in multiple cities and in multiple scenarios. In general, I like it and consider it a worthy competitor to the iPhone. Both devices run on fast 3G phone networks and include Wi-Fi. Both have smart-touch interfaces and robust Web browsers. Both have the ability to easily download third-party apps, or programs.

But the two devices have different strengths and weaknesses, and are likely to attract different types of users.

If you’ve been lusting after the iPhone’s functionality, but didn’t like its virtual keyboard or its user interface or its U.S. carrier, AT&T, the G1 may be just the ticket for you. But it does have some significant downsides.

By far, the G1’s biggest differentiator is that it has a physical keyboard, which is revealed by sliding open the screen. The keyboard proved only fair in my tests, with keys that are too flat and that can be hard to see in bright light, and with a bulge in the body on the right side that you have to reach over to type.

The G1 has a slick, clever touch interface to go along with its keyboard, and it includes a powerful new operating system. The touch interface is fast and smooth. It’s also much easier to place a phone call on the G1 than on the iPhone. In my battery tests, the G1 lasted through the day, but I had to charge it every night. The built-in download store for third-party programs, called Market, worked well in my tests. The G1 is tightly tied to Google’s online services.  I found the G1’s user interface inferior to the iPhone’s. It lacks the iPhone’s ability to flick between multiple pictures and Web pages, or to zoom in and zoom out of a photo or Web page by simply using two fingers to “pinch” or expand the image.

Loren’s video review

Walt’s video review

Mary Jo Foley has a story that teases out the direction of Microsoft’s Unified Communications plans. On the heals of major moves by Cisco this is getting interesting.

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group, hinted on September 22 about what’s coming in a canned Q&A on Microsoft’s Web site. Pall said:

“(W)e’re exploring ways to infuse unified communications into new business applications, workflow technologies and content management.

“In addition, customers should look for more focus on mobility, spanning mobile messaging and mobile telephony. They should also expect to see more comprehensive conferencing solutions than before and the ability to extend OCS telephony beyond remote and mobile workers. “

On the cell-phone side of the house, Microsoft is working on a set of Communications Server services for Windows Mobile phones. These services are codenamed “Rouge,” according to Mary Jo’s sources.

The big question is how Microsoft will credibily wrap up all the needed services - to me I’m looking at how they handle video. Certainly Google will have something to say about it.

On the Unified Communications side here is a podcast that I did with Eric Swift at the UC Summit this past May. With Android being announced today here is Eric’s of Microsoft’s view on competing with Google.

According to Eric Eldon Android is more than just a phone platform. It’s the weapon on choice in Google’s quest for world domination. The prevailing wisdom is that mobile is the future; that’s no surprise. “Android” has been the codename for google’s mobile phone platform but Eric and John speculate it’s part of a much larger strategy.

Google is one of the founders of consumer-oriented cloud computing. It’s one thing to be the leader in free webmail but quite another to be the sole provider to an untapped market. Currently mobile devices have limited non-phone capability. I use mine for email mostly but occasionally for searching, mapping and web browsing as well. I wish I could do more and my device, Samsung i760, certainly has the potential but the services don’t exist or at least aren’t optimized for mobile devices. In steps Google.

With the Android platform Google controls the full application lifecycle. The platform can be minimal, much like an old WYSE terminal, as long as “the cloud” can supply everything from apps to content. Google has a formidable backend and is growing their cloud at an alarming rate. They’re building SkyNet, a la the Terminator. More than a T-1000, Android is a delivery device to get Google’s cloud “virus” into the hands of millions of fanboys worldwide.

Unlike John, I don’t think this effects UC… yet. Google doesn’t own much, anything really, on the voice side. GTalk’s a joke. Would Google be interested in picking Skype up cheap from eBay? That would certainly give them the foundation of a compelling UC strategy! Why am I the only one talking about this?

Android is looking like a possible Unified Communications killer. Google is changing the game here. Eric Eldon has a fantastic reporting piece that Android isn’t just for phones.

Some snips from Eric’s piece…“this is where some of Google’s other initiatives could come in, one source speculates. If the wider-ranging operating system is really what Google is doing with Android, well, the App Engine, Google’s web hosting and support service for developers, wouldn’t just be about helping web developers, it would provide services for Android developers. And, Google is also constantly improving the artificial intelligence capacity of its search engine, its spam filtering in Gmail, and a range of other services — Google is creating a supercomputer, driven by artificial intelligence. Through Android, it could let these developers build applications that use its brain. What’s more this could explain why Google has been experimenting with free WiFi in Mountain View (which is pretty great, by the way), and with other wireless transmission experiments. It wants to create an ecosystem that relies on communication between any two devices.”

I’m hearing from my industry friends that Android is more than phone platform. It’s common knowledge that Google is powering their back end with LAMP stacks so it makes so much long term sense to make Android the centerpiece of a bigger competitive strategy - Internet Operating System ..oh yeah Powered By Google.

I’d love to hear Alex Lewis chime in on this topic.

Eric also writes … “Microsoft, meanwhile, has a similarly grand vision of connecting all your devices with its Live Mesh platform, but it isn’t focusing on mobile, and the realization of this goal is a long way off.” …

I would add that their Unified Communications piece is far away too. Ken Camp has been writing about the lack of serious pilots in UC and he’s correct. UC could be a pipe dream with freight trains like Google coming down the track….

Recently I sat down with Eric Swift of Microsoft’s Unified Communications team and asked him directly the Google question...How does Microsoft UC strategy compete with Google’s moves (as a threat to UC). Here is the interview

I am constantly seeing new players moving into what is looking like Unified Communications to me but completely open. I am wondering what IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, and others are thinking… they got to be worried. Google has a huge platform and no legacy issues to deal with. It has a clean sheet of paper. If they get the developer community then what we now know as UC vendors ..well they all could be “toast”.

Platform wars continue….

Analyst Anton Wahlman wrote a post on seekingalpha that is bullish on Nextwave. Anton goes on to suggest that Nextwave might be spinning off the Videopacket technology that is from what I’m seeing being the centerpiece of Google’s Android platform.

Google reiterated its plan to bring its Android operating system to market later this year. WAVE’s PacketVideo software is part of this, and several top-tier handset makers finalizing their products.

This is one of those quiet stories in the confusing spectrum wars. As the spectrum maps starts to materialize around providing broadband like coverage (hello iphone and mobile broadband), is NextWave positioned for a big score?

Anton Walhman thinks so.

Anton writes that the stock is rising because of the following:
1. WAVE sold $150m worth of AWS spectrum, primarily to T-Mobile USA. My preliminary analysis suggests that approximately 600m MHz POPs were sold, implying an average price of $0.25 per MHz POP. This price, while significantly lower than the recent prices paid in Canada, was still materially higher than the price suggested by short-sellers (see SeekingAlpha article “Why I’m Short NextWave Wireless” from May 16, authored by an anonymous source). This would leave WAVE with 347m MHz POPs in the AWS band to be sold at a future date, perhaps at higher prices resembling the recent Canadian auction.

Conspicuously, the $0.25 price paid for these tier-2 city properties resembles the $0.28 nationwide average price assumed in the Sprint (S) - Clearwire WiMax merger little over two months ago. In the US alone, WAVE now has 347m + 2,807m + 972m = 4,126 MHz POPs left after the first tranche sold to T-Mobile USA and others. Forgetting the huge premium normally assigned to NYC and other properties, simply and crudely applying a $0.25 price across the board, still leaves you with over $1 billion coming into the door over the next several months. Figure $150m or so per month for 7 months for $1.05 billion.

WAVE’s market cap on Tuesday was $3.91 x 103m shares = $403m. Then add WAVE’s international spectrum assets plus the chip, systems level and software businesses.

2. Speaking of future spectrum sales, Tuesday night’s 8-K filed with the SEC provides for what will likely be the next milestone in WAVE’s monetization schedule: “NextWave plans to provide an update regarding these efforts upon filing its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 28, 2008 on August 7, 2008.” These next steps can include a combination of more spectrum sales, divestiture of any of the chip, software or systems level businesses, or new equity/debt investments. The newly beefed-up balance sheet could also allow for a favorable debt renegotiation.

3. WAVE appears to be only a week away from hitting the jackpot with the FCC in conjunction with the Sirius (SIRI)/XM (XMSR) merger. This article lays out the details as well as any. In brief, the FCC may impose a condition on the Sirius/XM merger to the effect of them having to clean up their long-time pollution of the 2.3 GHz WCS spectrum. If this happens – and it’s now looking likely, if one is to believe the experts and the recent reporting – it would dramatically increase the value of WAVE’s 2,807m MHz POPs in this band. The FCC vote is scheduled for August 1. Would anybody in the right mind dare be short WAVE stock going into that meeting?

4. Google reiterated its plan to bring its Android operating system to market later this year. WAVE’s PacketVideo software is part of this, and numerous reports on Engadget and similar sites show several top-tier handset makers finalizing their products. The significant value of this WAVE software will become evident in less than 6 months from now, when it will be mentioned alongside iPhone and Blackberry in terms of underpinning the hottest handsets in the market.

$60-$80m in 2008 revenue, growing 100%+ into 2009, multiplied by a 4x-5x multiple…hmm, could be worth almost $1 billion once the Google Android phones hit the market this Holiday Season. Hey, why not spin it out or sell it? Is this the update we should expect on August 7? Probably not, but would you dare bet against it?