On Nov 28, 2007 9:16 PM, L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > WILL Android be free? I sense a catch in there somewhere. Call it a hunch.
Google has said it will be free. Google doesn't intend to make money on the OS -- they intend to make money on services delivered via the OS (and maybe their own 700MHz network). A girl can dream. > But I think THEY think > they can't do that because it would mean absolutely NO return on their > investment of 5 years or so and maybe mounting debt that can't be paid off > by licensing their developed technology to anyone. Business rule #1: sunk costs are sunk costs. Palm won't be licensing their new OS to anyone. Heck, Access has them beat, and now Google has effectively demolished any possible market that might have existed. I mean, who would license a closed OS from Palm at a cost >$0 when Google will give them the entirely open Android for free? Nobody...at least no one sane. > Perhaps they think they > can make the better OS and make money off it - even if it's not the better > OS for long. Then they're more delusional than even I thought possible. > Anyways ... can they put in a backwards compatibility layer? Isn't that the > IP of Access? Nope...anyone could write a compatibility layer. Hell, Palm *owns* Palm OS outright -- they can't infringe their own IP. > If anything here the money would be made by Access selling > that compatibility layer to Android (and iPhone and WinMo and RIM) customers > to get them to switch or licensing to the first Treo-like handset that runs > Android that comes out from HTC next year. Um, what? Access might license a Palm OS compatibility layer, but there wouldn't be any "switching" involved. The compat. layer would simply reside in ROM, sitting on top of the Linux kernel and other components, and handle Palm OS apps. Everything else in the phone would likely still be Android plus any OEM customization that happens (e.g., HTC offering up its own UI). I really see Android as exactly what BOTH Palm and Access hoped to do, except it'll be available before either and will likely be better than both. That's the power of open source + Google at work. > What emerging standards was Tandy negligent in capitalizing on? Oh, little things like PS/2 keyboard connectors and serial and parallel ports -- Tandy relied entirely on proprietary Tandy connectors, so you could only buy Tandy peripherals for your Tandy computer. They didn't last long once the industry began the rapid convergence to standardized parts.
