Headsets

Having just launched its Mini 3 Android (News - Alert)-based cell phone in China and Brazil, Dell is expected to officially unveil a phone for the U.S. running on AT&T's network sometime in the second quarter of 2010.

 

At the same time, Nokia is signaling its willingness to migrate its higher-end phones away from the Symbian (News - Alert) operating system to a Linux-based one called Maemo. Are both companies a little late to the party?

 

Google's Android is proving to be a powerful too for anyone – be a long-time cell phone manufacturer such as Motorola, a new, well-heeled entrant like Dell (News - Alert), or even a small no-name manufacturer – to quickly prototype and build a phone. As the mobile operating system continues to pick up momentum, the ecosystem of applications will continue to expand as developers jump onto the bandwagon; it doesn't help that the OS is under an Apache-style open source license, letting vendors add their own proprietary improvements without having to release them back into the community.

 

Other mainstream PC vendors such as Acer and Asus have also announced plans to roll out smartphones based on Android, leveraging their hardware design sill and manufacturing capability. In theory, one net benefit of all this should be cheaper and more powerful cell phones and more choices for people buying them. It remains to be seen if this works out in practice; Sprint and Verizon Wireless have talked about having more "open" networks, but Android phone manufacturers have yet to truly test carrier certification models for devices.

 

Analysts having been wondering if Dell will be able to grab enough market share to make its entry into the smartphone business financially worthwhile. Given that the company is first introducing phones in faster growing markets and then getting around to North America, Dell is likely on the right track since, as illustrated by Nokia (News - Alert), you don't have to be successful in North America to be successful worldwide. China Mobile has half a billion customers -- or just about three times AT&T’s and Verizon's (News - Alert) user base combined --so the odds are good that Dell will do well.

 

So why is Nokia avoiding the Google bandwagon? The answer is simple: Nokia has already invested considerable cash in its own apps store and services, so it can snap up revenues on things like music, maps, navigation, and even banking. Moving to Android would mean forgoing all that investment and conceding the market for services to Google and third-party vendors leveraging Android.