Recently Andy Rubin, the Google engineering director heading up Google's mobile platform Android, likened today's hodge-podge of mobile phone software to the early days of personal computers. I thought the reference to the earlier days of the PC was spot on. In so many ways, mobile computing and as an extension mobile marketing, is a rerun of what we hashed through a decade ago to get the Internet, and as an extension Internet marketing, where it is today. In that context mobile marketing has a ton of promise, but it also has a way to go.For example, take the ability to multi-task. As I write this post and look at my desktop. I have four applications running, one of which is my browser. I have three browser windows open that contain a total of twelve different tabs. What’s the big deal, we’ve had multi-tasking on the PC since the launch of Windows 95 right? Right. But you probably can’t multi-task on your mobile phone. On mine, I feel like I’m in a time warp using Windows 3.1. But because I can multi-task on my PC, there are currently over 20 brands that have ads and a few widgets running on my computer.
I have to say it’s a bit odd to be writing about mobile marketing, and talking about the ability to do multi-tasking. But it’s a big deal. When Apple released their SDK in March, some say they banned multi-tasking for third party app developers. Others say the ban is a myth. I just know it’s needed as does Andy Rubin. When asked recently where he thought other mobile-phone software fell short, he specifically cited multi-tasking.
Google is taking heat regarding the plausibility of its Android project. Will it be an iPhone killer? Probably not. However, could it move the mobile industry towards a more open, developer friendly environment similar to the Net? Potentially. And if it does, Google sells more ads.
