Is Amazon Stealing Android from Google?

 Two weeks ago, it launched the Amazon Appstore that focuses on Android apps, and last week it announced a cloud-based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has its own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing a more structured store to Android with room for users comments and reviews—a key step to vetting the apps it carries.

This is a very strategic move by Amazon, and it could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google's approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that the OEMs 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, Google said it would have one version of Android for smartphones and another for tablets. Now it says that it will merge both versions into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TVs in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices with up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7 inches but less then 11 inches.

Part of the problem with Google's Android strategy is that it thinks Android needs to be open source. This means that Google creates the core source code and then vendors who use it can 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 to use it as a medium to deliver Google search and advertisments to millions of users around the world. As I understand it, it has an annual goal to bring in $10.00 of ARPU (average revenue per unit) annually by the end of 2012. If it could get Android on 1 billion smartphones, tablets, TVs, car navigation systems, etc, that could mean as much as $10 billion annually to its bottom line sometime in the future (if it achieves this level of success).

But since Google is an engineering driven company, the focus has always been about delivering an OS that meets the goals I mentioned, not necessarily to create a structured OS with strict guidelines and enforce rigid practices to deliver a constant user experience between devices. It has pushed this open source model for Android from the beginning, and now it's coming back to bite Google in the form of serious fragmentation, as well as causing continual frustration and angry feedback from the licensees.

There are reasons why Apple and Microsoft's OSs are extremely successful and why Linux has struggled to gain any market share beyond its use in servers and controllers. Apple has total control of its OS, UI, and, in its case, standardization of certain connectors that are part of its 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 control makes sure users' experiences on Apple products are consistent.