Yahoo not incubating Androids counterpart

Yahoo not incubating Android's counterpart

Version 1.0 of Yahoo’s open mobile platform is all set to be out soon and there’s plausibly more to it than what comparisons with Google’s open platform would reveal

Pratima Harigunani

Friday, June 20, 2008

SINGAPORE: Google is about depth and Yahoo! is about breadth like never before, says Adam Taggart, director, product marketing, Yahoo! Mobile as he explains why comparisons between the two web giants and their imminent open mobile platforms in works are irrelevant.

Speaking to CyberMedia News at CommunicAsia on the difference or similarities between the two platforms, Taggart said, “Google is about depth on how it will generate optmization and maximization abilities for mobiles and respective operating system. Yahoo, in short is more. It’s about breadth. It will help the user go seamless irrespective of the operating system, carrier, handset etc that one is using. It’s a layer above the OS.”

And this platform is slated for version 1.0 release soon.

Taggart says that while there is no beta per se out now there is introductory version alive currently where developers are helping the company improve what it has planned and is working on.

“Till yesterday, there was a lot of esoteric programming like the J2EE that had to be done and thus the need of finding the rare breed of respective developers. And the issue is even after you find them, and once they write the programs, they have to specialize and compartmentalize it as per the constraint of operating system or device or whatever. Publishers too, need to think which operating system or device they should specialize their content for. While the large ones can afford to spend that much on bucks and complexity, it is not possible for small publishers. Its expensive and complicated,” he says.

So what Yahoo has done so far is that it has made it easier to make applications on the programming side.

“That’s a big win,” he gushes. Secondly, it has addressed the complete problem of fragmentation around different operating systems.

“This is something Yahoo has been dealing on an overall basis, much before the mobile part came out, since early on. Because Yahoo is all about ubiquity,” Taggart says.

“We are putting our manpower, brainpower and money at it and even buying companies wherever the need and opportunity arises.”

"So far Yahoo’s own services could run across all platforms internally, but now that would be available all across as Yahoo would open its platform.”

So what about Android or Limo (Linux-based operating system for mobile)?

“Android is not what we are competing with. If tomorrow Android is a hit and attains a critical mass, our platform will be optimized for that too and we will take advantage of that. The key is that a developer, with Yahoo’s new platform, has just to focus on making a cool application and not worry about the headaches of where will it run and where it will not.”

So echoed David Ko, managing director and VP of Yahoo! Connected Life.

He told CyberMedia News: “We are not creating just another operating system but something on top of it all. If Android is successful, we would use that too. The idea is to be agnostic to any constraint, be it OS, device or operator.”

Yahoo! unveiled the mobile open platform as part of their new strategy at CES 2008 earlier this year.

Google‘s Android platform is a set of technologies for device manufacturers to use in order to create Android-compliant phones (and thus easily use Google services).

Yahoo! Intends to make a similar strategy and be far more open by releasing a set of software tools that will work on any mobile phone.

As per some news reports, Google's Android phone, that comprises a suite of Java-based Linux applications that run on the phone itself, is a platform for new mobile phones, all of which are intended to integrate seamlessly with Google's core services, as well as with the features of the phones themselves.

Both may be facing the same problem that is prevalent in today’s mobile space.

The mobile Internet is a subset of the websites computer users see, typically optimized for viewing on small phone screens.

Current phones pose problems of heterogeneous features, with issues on what web services a phone will support, and different manufacturers offering differing levels of access (or constraints) to their phone's features.

Open platforms thus can enable an open and steady platform that developers can use to create better applications.

LiMo, is another such attempt to counter this issue. It is an industry consortium dedicated to creating an open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices through a balanced and transparent contribution process claiming thus, to enable an ecosystem of differentiated products, applications, and services from device manufacturers, operators, ISVs and integrators.

Apart from Limo, Android etc, also in the fray is the big boy Microsoft that has something similar in the form of Microsoft Windows Mobile, which cannot be compared on openness and web-centricity with the likes of Android, but is another platform on which applications can be developed.

So far there’s no major growth or spurt of action seen on either of the devices.

Yahoo's approach is pivoted around Yahoo Go software, which will allow developers to build their applications (or widgets, in Go! terminology), and then making sure that that platform works on existing phones. It claims to iron out the challenges that developing applications for mobile pose in the sense of different kinds of devices, platforms, the complexity of different screens sizes, etc.

In January Yahoo! announced that it will be turning its mobile service, Yahoo! Go, into an open platform for 3rd party developers.

Unlike Google's Android OS, the Yahoo! Go platform will work on more than 250 mobile devices that Go already works on, it said.

At Communicasia at Singapore, Yahoo continued its series of enhancements it is making to its Internet services to optimize them to run on mobile phones and this spanned across OneSearch, Go 3.0 and MTV widgets, etc.

©CyberMedia News