We spend so much time warning hardware OEMs of their shrinking windows of opportunity in smartbook realms, we have to remind ourselves to check in on the software front. Google, which has its own problems in hardware with Nexus One, is making incremental steps in the Chrome OS beta, but is taking some hits for Android – which the company always warned was not really intended for platforms larger than a smartphone. In any event, the pressure is on for the company to have viable software development platforms deployed by this summer.
Android, of course, has more experience and more battle-scars under its belt, which is why the HTC Incredible review by Clint Boulton in eWeek must have hurt. Boulton didn’t find much to fault in the HTC hardware, but said that Android simply wasn’t ready for enterprise use in terms of centralized security administration. Features like moving to passwords for complex devices, and ability to wipe a device clean (Apple iPhone 4G, anyone?) simply aren’t there yet. Makes you wonder if Google provides a suitable client-side PKI infrastructure in Android, if the company has fallen down on such basic features.
With Chrome, the critical issue is assembling differentiation before Apple, Microsoft, and Intel Moblin have a chance to define the mobile space. Google is making the right noises. It is developing its own Cloud Print system for networked printing, it has integrated the much-maligned Adobe Flash (at least in the browser), and its acquisition of Bumptop might give the company a unique user interface advantage for both Android and Chrome – I emphasize “might”, because reports on iPad from the field indicate that users may become comfortable with a tablet user interface that is first to market, thus creating a de facto standard that will be hard to challenge.
Coming to terms with enterprise security in a cloud realm still being defined is a challenge that Google may be able to rectify rapidly. Adding client-side feature sets to Chrome and Android to make them special environments compared to Moblin and Windows Phone and Apple, is a challenge Google is responding to quickly. But the clock is ticking, and solid client environments of both OS’s better be offered to developers by mid-year.
Loring
