Google Previews First Wave of Wiki Model For Android, With Incentives (GOOG)

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) already announced the Open Handset Alliance for its free and open platform Android for mobile devices.  But today, Google is releasing an early look at the Android SDK for developers interested in building applications for Android.  But it also announced the Android Developer Challenge, which provides $10 million in multiple awards for developers who build great applications for Android.  Developers can get a first look at the software development kit.

As an outsider, it is quite difficult thinking of and imagining all of the potential applications that could be applied to this for a mobile phone.  The potentiality of applications are literally limitless, and it’s way too soon to know who will offer applications for free and who will charge for applications.  Google’s goal is for free apps, but at the end of the day software and app developers that aren’t employees of Google will want to make money.  Focusing on a grant alone is not a sustainable model for anything besides a ".org" entity. 

What is obvious is that Android is either going to revolutionize the mobile application industry where Google proved that the masses can be tapped on an outsourced "pay for performance" model, or it is going to be a case study of why open source models are poor businesses.  We’ll all start to know the answers in 2008.

Jon C. Ogg
November 13, 2007