The Droid is coming

There's a lot of buzz going around right now about the new Droid phone. It's a Motorola smartphone running the Google Android platform on Verizon's network. The technical specs on the phone sound impressive, and the marketing campaign launching right now is positioning it as the iPhone killer everyone has been waiting for.

A couple posts ago I talked about Windows Mobile phones vs. the iPhone. I mentioned that even though the Windows HTC phone I was looking at might have better technical specs, it didn't have the same complementary 'network' (Apps Store, user base) that the iPhone has and as such was at a disadvantage. I didn't mention the Google Android platform at the time, but it is certainly emerging as a contender in the mobile operating system market.

The App Store has 85,000 applications available, and coming in (a somewhat distant) distant second is the Android Market at 10,200. These numbers are based on statistics pulled on Sept. 9th, 2009.

So how did Google get the Android platform to a place where it's ready to take on the current reigning champion? This CNET article ("Google Andoid: More than just a cheap date") seems to attribute most of Android's success to its open source nature. Google pretty much gives away the Android platform to any device manufacturer that might be interested in using it. This allows for anyone to experiment with the platform on their upcoming phones and helps lower the overall cost of manufacturing and licensing. The platform also draws in a heavy crowd of application developers looking for the flexibility of open source. Seems like a win-win in terms of adoption for Google. For now the focus appears to be on gaining widespread adoption and usage, and using that as a channel to deliver search and advertising services. Classic Google.

The new Droid phone appears to have the two key features needed to take on the iPhone. It has equal (if not better) technical specs. More importantly, it has a complementary network that is growing and will soon challenge the App Store in offerings. As the Android platform is released on more and more new phones we should see the Android user base steadily grow. We'll see if this is enough to take on the incumbent Apple.