At least the wave of new mobile operating systems, set to appear on commercial devices over the next few months, is making the market more interesting, and potentially even disrupting the Android/iOS axis. Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile is leading the field in terms of profile and carrier support, but this week Ubuntu and Tizen, also Linux/browser-based OSs, are picking up momentum too. However, behind all these Linux innovations lurks the big shadow of Google Chrome, and its future role in the mobile world.
Canonical has signed up two important new supporters for its Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group, formed last month. Both China Unicom and Verizon Wireless have pledged support. The former is particularly interesting, as China is seen as the most promising market for a non-Android mobile Linux to gain real scale, given the country’s difficult relationships with Google. The authorities have spoken of the need for a homegrown mobile platform, and there are strong candidates from Baidu and Alibaba, but these have not achieved significant carrier support yet, and the three cellcos may look further afield for an OS they can control and use to differentiate their services.
However, Ubuntu has not Unicom’s only option ‘ it was also one of the 17 cellcos which announced support for Firefox Mobile earlier this year. This platform is ahead in terms of commercial momentum, with Telefonica planning launches soon in Latin America. And Firefox OS handsets have gone on sale this week in Poland, via T-Mobile and the Alcatel One Touch Fire handsets. TMo will make further launches in autumn. In Germany, the phone will be marketed through parent Deutsche Telekom’s discount brand Congstar, while it will also sell through the giant’s subsidiaries in Hungary (Magyar Telekom) and Greece (Cosmote).
However, Li Xingxin of Unicom’s terminal research center, said: ‘Ubuntu can be an exciting new platform for the Chinese market, offering a brand new user experience that balances user simplicity with operator requirements.’
These sentiments were echoed by Verizon Wireless, which has been vocal about the need for other choices besides Android and iOS, and particularly a major third platform over which carriers can have more influence. Samir Vaidya of Verizon’s device technology team said: ‘Verizon Wireless is joining Ubuntu’s CAG to participate in technology discussions around this new platform, which has the ability to bring new and exciting features to developers and ultimately, customers.’
Founding members of the CAG were Deutsche Telekom, EE, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG U+, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom and ‘the leading Spanish international carrier’ (presumably Firefox’s lead supporter, Telefonica). Since then, Indonesia’s Smartfren has also signed up for a program which offers members early access to details of the OS and manufacturer plans, plus a ‘period of exclusivity to ship Ubuntu in their markets’.
However, while operators may be enthusiastic about these new OSs, as they look to dilute the power of Google and Apple, Ubuntu still needs a big name handset maker behind it, especially as Firefox devices are already shipping from ZTE and others. And Tizen has the biggest name of all, Samsung ‘ though, probably for that reason, fewer vocal cellcos backing it. Although Samsung has reportedly delayed shipment of its first Tizen smartphone until the fourth quarter, because of issues with the app store, it has the market weight to make a big impact for the OS, and the need, with Galaxy under pressure for the first time for a couple of years, to diversify its revenues.
Tizen has a complex history ‘ it was formed from the combination of the operator-driven LiMO mobile Linux platform, which failed to gain much market traction, and of MeeGo, a joint Nokia/Intel development which also underpins another mobile OS option, Jolla’s Sailfish. MeeGo was itself a merger, of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo. The Finnish vendor lost interest when it tied up with Windows Phone, but Intel remains, along with Samsung, the major backers of Tizen.
The two giants are looking to drum up essential developer interest by launching a challenge, with a total of $4m in prizes and top awards of $200,000. Developers have until November 1 to submit their apps and the winners will be announced in December in nine categories. The Tizen Foundation also hosted a developer conference in San Francisco in May. A few cellcos have committed to the platform, notably NTT Docomo of Japan, and Sprint is a member of the supporters’ group, though has not detailed handset launch plans.
Meanwhile, potentially the strongest Linux/browser platform, capable of spanning all kinds of devices, is Google Chrome. Although the company has denied it plans to merge this with Android any time soon, there are growing synergies between the two OSs, and Chrome is being evolved into a full platform now as uptake of Chromebooks ‘ thin client laptops, now priced as low as $199 and relying mainly on cloud access rather than local apps and processing ‘ takes off. In the past eight months, according to researchers at NPD Group, Chromebooks have accounted for 20% to 25% of the US sub-$300 laptop sector, making them the fastest growing segment of the PC market, which is generally in a state of decline. The devices have only 4% to 5% of the US laptop segment, but this is up from less than 2% a year ago. ‘While we were skeptical initially, I think Chromebooks definitely have found a niche in the marketplace,’ said NPD analyst Stephen Baker. ‘The entire computing ecosystem is undergoing some radical change, and I think Google has its part in that change.’
After a shaky start, Google has attracted more OEMs to its platform, as well as driving down prices. Intel has more than 1,000 software engineers working at least partly on Chrome OS. Consumer acceptance is rising as Google delivers OS updates more regularly ‘ it will soon do this every six weeks ‘ and includes more offline tools. It is also pushing the brand upmarket, notably with its own high end Chromebook Pixel, which has a touchscreen, built-in cellular connectivity and a price tag up to $1,449.
The devices and OS obviously rely on the gradual shift of user behavior away from local apps and tools to always-on web services linking to data in the cloud. Web apps have traditionally been less powerful than native code, but that is changing, and Google is driving the transformation. Its latest effort is to add back end support for its Chrome Packaged Apps, which allow services like Gmail to load perfectly offline and to run outside the Chrome browser, on PCs or Macs.
The new updates allow these to use a new set of APIs such as In-App Payments (based on Google Wallet); Identity API, for authentication; the Native Messaging API for communicating with native software; and a Media Gallery API for accessing locally stored music, image, and video files, including iTunes; Bluetooth 4.0 support for connecting web apps to low energy tracking devices; and Analytics for monitoring app user data.
These enhancements are the kind of changes which are enriching Chrome OS; evolving it into a fully fledged developer platform; and pushing it closer to the performance and experience levels of a native system. This is also the goal of Firefox and others ‘ by relying on HTML5, cloud services and, increasingly, better offline performance, these will look to break down the walled gardens of the native OSs and deliver the online-only dream. But just as the native mobile platforms have fallen over when confronted with Android and the Google ecosystem machine, so these new pretenders risk the same fate at the hands of Chrome OS, or a Chrome/Android combination.