Open Mobile Space Growing
Finally, Google dropped what they have been working on with the Android project and Open Handset Alliance. I wonder how this will effect OpenMoko and the rest of the environment. The big “G” has been doing a lot of large scale standardization and industry build-up which is going to promote long term change in the industry.
In other news, OpenMoko is getting lots of developer love now with a well working phone dialer and more.
I wonder if OpenMoko was approached by the Google Androids, and how this is seen to shake out? I notice on the list that HTC is listed as a member of the Open Handset Alliance, and is a direct competitor to OpenMoko’s backer, FIC.
Similar to the OpenSocial announcement, I hope that there is room for open standardization between the large players so that users and developers don’t get crunched in the business warfare 
UPDATE: Also, its important to not be naive with either. Here is a nice quote from Tim O’Reilly about how Google’s OpenSocial initiative doesn’t go far enough:
While I like the direction of Google OpenSocial, not only may Google be too late, as Mark argues, I don’t think they go far enough. A framework and a set of Google Gadgets for building “social applications” misses the point. We don’t want to build more applications that look like Facebook applications. It isn’t about a social UI. It’s about deeper re-use of social data to enliven any application. Some of those applications may have a minimal UI, like Google’s breakthrough search app. OpenSocial doesn’t give us any of that. Ajax widgets are a halfway house, an attempt to sandbox the kinds of applications that can be created. And that will be the downfall of OpenSocial. If all you can build are Facebook-like applications, Facebook wins.
And a littler further on…
So, no, it isn’t too late for OpenSocial. But it is too late if Google frames the problem too narrowly. Imagine a desktop “operating system” where the only APIs were those that allowed you to build desktop UI components, and gave you no access to deeper levels of the system. No one would take such a platform seriously. You couldn’t develop real applications. Yet Google (and others) have been pushing the idea that APIs to Javascript widgets are sufficient. Google made a major wrong turn when they withdrew their SOAP APIs in favor of the gadget approach.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the lightweight accessibility of gadgets. But it’s clear that Google has fallen into the Microsoft trap once referred to as “the strategy tax.” Google wants to keep too much control over what their developers can do. And that’s the beginning of the end for them.
UPDDDDATE: And finally, check out Dare Obasanjo’s assessment of Google’s OpenSocial vs. Facebook.
ASIDE: In the end, I’m mega-happy that T-mobile has joined on. Hey Deutsche Telekom (with a K), when are you going to get 3G+ in the USA? Did you forget that everyone else has had it for 1+ years now!
