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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

>"The basic stance from Google’s perspective is that the Android platform has a significant market share and volume."

There is a bit of jumping to conclusions here.

Given that Schmidt was talking about ICS rather than Android in general and the proportion of Android devices not intended to facilitate OS upgrades, the market for ICS specific applications may not be so well established as to make the author's conclusion the slam dunk as which it is presented.

In other words, Android's existing market share is predominately running pre ICS versions and ICS only fragments it further.

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I get what you are saying, but it's not quite as bad as it is made out to be.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

85% of the market is on either 2.2 or 2.3. Those are the two most recent phone versions in general distribution. I'd expect that in about 1 year, 85% will be on 4.x or 2.3.

New versions don't really make it worse, and new hardware standards often do make things better.

2.3 is Gingerbread not ICS upon which the article is premised.

In addition, Android faces increased competition in the form of Windows Phone 7 which is offered as an iOS alternative at similar price points and with quite possibly a higher level of brand recognition among consumers.

Keep in mind that what I am making out to be bad is the author's logic, not Google's mobile OS though I do believe its market share is very vulnerable.

You're making the (in my opinion, large) assumption that the "brand recognition" for Windows Phone is a positive thing. Personally, I suspect it would be doing better if Microsoft had called it "Metro Phone" or something else non-Windows.

In the weeks following the announcement, many companies have listed many of their popular devices as "getting ICS." It seems better than for versions past.

I think almost all major (Honeycomb) tablets are slated for ICS, many of the most popular phones including the SGS2, Nexus S, and others are slated for ICS. Also, Gingerbread has gotten 50% within a year of release. Plus, many pre-2.2 devices are eligible for upgrade around now. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest soon ICS will have a strong market presence, and within a year ICS+ will be on the majority of devices.

edit: ICS+ means ICS and any versions released after it, not the version after ICS.

Considering that Android activates 500,000 phones every day, it won't be long before the number of phones running ICS dwarfs any other version.

If every phone sold from today onwards were an ICS phone, and half a million of them were sold every day, it would still take about 14 months for ICS to have a 50% share.

Iirc, Froyo took 8 months, and Gingerbread 12 months (just recently) to reach a 50% penetration of Android devices.

You are forgetting about existing phones upgrading. Admittedly, it can be a long process for the hardware vendors to certify ICS for their phones, but 6 months is probably a reasonable time frame.

One thing that has changed about the relationship between Google and the hardware vendors is that Google now has it as a core objective to get the vendors onto the latest platform. In the past, I don't think that it was a high priority on Google's part.

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