Brushwork By A Geeta

Will Google Succeed in Creating a Cell-Phone Universe?

My take is that Google can do it but it will be a very challenging task.

The latest entrants are software companies that have entered into mobile phone space, specifically - Google and Apple.

Apple obviously came first. The iPhone has been heralded as a wake-up call to the mobile industry long criticized for making anything other than voice phone calls difficult and expensive. More recently is Google, making things really interesting with its Android initiative. Unlike the iPhone, which is a flashy piece of hardware optimized with equally flashy software - Android is Google’s open-source operating system for mobile phones.

Google and its 34 partners in the Open Handset Alliance are betting that together they can reshape the mobile phone industry by offering a free Linux-based mobile phone operating system and software dubbed ‘Android’. Android consists of a fully integrated mobile software stack containing an operating system, middleware, user interface and applications. Google expects the first phones based on Android to be available in the second half of 2008.

It's a bit of a pipe dream
Google is not the first company to promise the mobile phone community an easier and more streamlined way to develop new applications.

Microsoft tried to unite the fragmented mobile phone market under Windows Mobile OS, but despite licensing agreements with some 50 phone manufacturers, it shipped around only 10 million-15 million phones during 2007. Nokia tried it too, spearheading the Symbian OS, which has captured more than 70% of the global smart-phone market, according to ABI Research. But developers must pay licensing fees to write for the platform, and ABI expects its market share to fall to almost 40% by 2012. (Symbian operating system is developed by a consortium of handset makers including Nokia and Sony Ericsson. The software is licensed to a number of handset manufacturers and is the No. 1 smartphone operating system for handsets in the world)

Google in a fiercely competitive market
Google has ventured into a fiercely competitive market, going up against Microsoft, which offers a mobile version of its Windows operating system; Symbian, which is owned and backed by industry players, including Nokia and Ericsson. Apple has its own operating system for iPhone.

Microsoft and Symbian's failure to dominate the market is striking. Both have been available for years - Windows Mobile is already on its sixth iteration - but handset manufacturers and network operators have not made either into a standard, for fear of ceding too much value to the standard's owner.

The Google strategy seems to make the environment for Windows Mobile much more challenging. If the plan succeeds, Android could pose a real threat to the existing smartphone operating system vendors. Clearly, this is a threat to Microsoft from the platform side

Not a easy task for Google
Getting consensus on a single operating system is easier said than done, since the companies that have developed these platforms have a vested interest in seeing their solution dominate. Alliances have been formed in the past to promote some standardization, but the problem has always been that the companies involved are reluctant to give up control.

While Google has rallied some of largest companies in the mobile ecosystem including chipmaker Qualcomm; handset makers Samsung Electronics, Motorola, and LG Electronics; and mobile operators T-Mobile, Sprint-Nextel, and Telecom Italia--it is still missing some significant players. For example, U.S. operators Verizon Wireless and AT&T haven't signed on to the alliance, nor has European operator Vodafone. In addition, Nokia is not a party to it.

It truly has to be an ecosystem that has everyone involved. Without AT&T and Verizon Wireless I think it just becomes yet another platform that all developers just have to write

Google is optimistic
Andy Rubin, head of the Android project at Google, hopes that within five years, "hundreds of millions" of Android-based phones will be sold per year. After five years of
effort, Microsoft ships about 20 million phones based on Windows Mobile each year

It is only time which will tell whether we all will be using single platform based mobile or not. Me too like most analysts keep fingers crossed on this. Hey, by the way, where is much talked Google’s phone (GPhone)?

By Shivashankar M.P.

Wheel of Retailing re-invented – Convergence hitting Indian Organized Retailing, specially in Petroleum/ Convenience Formats

I read this feature article in a business paper recently that said “Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum to open over 3,000 outlets this year” Which, given the loss making nature of these government owned oil marketing companies, should come as a surprise. Apparently, they are doing it to raise competitive barriers. But, what interested me more, was their stated intention of raising the contribution from non fuel retailing. IOC apparently currently earns about Rs 200 crore from its non-fuel retail, and hopes to take that up to Rs 3,000 crore per annum in the next few years.
Now, according to me, Non fuel retailing suffers from ‘confused’ positioning between ‘Kirana stores’ and ‘organised’ retail outlets – on the face of it, these outlets offer the ‘convenience’ of shopping/ snacking whenever you stop to fill petrol – and ofcourse, that’s a powerful proposition. But in India, where in any case, there are kirana shops littering the streets – willing to deliver products to your homes at a phone call, at rates that are lower than MRP, and also with a comfort level of very often offering you a ‘monthly account book’ – the proposition falls a little short. Add to it the fact that a) unlike the West, where you get out of your car or two wheeler to fill ‘gas’ yourself, and then its only a few steps to the store to pick up your eggs and bread; in India, you very often do not leave the comfort of your car while the petrol station attendant is filling ‘er up, and so the inertia of getting out to shop is higher; b) very few gas stations if any may have extra space for parking if this behavior were to grow; and c) A bulk of the convenience store merchandize is liquor and tobacco in the West – in India, liquor sales are regulated, and tobacco is maybe the best distributed product category; it really makes you wonder about the robustness of the model.
The ‘powers that be’ seem to agree - "We have some concerns and are not happy with the idea. Oil companies have more important problems to concentrate on such as adulteration and retail automation," said Mr M.S. Srinivasan, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, when asked about Indian Oil's plans to enter non-fuel retailing.
Notwithstanding that, we now hear about the majors in Petrol and Retail tying up to sell a wide range of products, and even services (like insurance!)
This actually nullifies a classical theory on the evolution of retailing formats – the wheel of retailing – the theory shows a cycle of retailers/ retail formats gaining a foothold into a market through productivity and low prices, only over time to lose some of that edge and beginning to move upstream in terms of product mix and customers, only to again later face more competitive problems as the newest round of low price competitors attacks from the bottom – the tide seems to be turning in India as all forms are converging, and there is a real ‘mashup’ of formats.
I think we just have to wait and see which way the wheel turns.