With today’s FCC’s approval to allow broadband WiFi to use TV channel white space spectrum … companies like Google will now have an even bigger advertising audience.
Google was one of the first to promote the idea to the FCC in 2008 of using so called white space for broadband WiFi . The changeover from analog to digital TV created channel space that no longer was being used for TV signals.
These WiFi broadband channels will have a range of about 50 miles and be able to penetrate buildings in the much the same way a TV signal can. The amount of channel space available makes it feasible that the whole nation can be blanketed with “Super WiFi”.
A company like Google with it’s Android mobile platform software, its dominance in Internet search, the Chrome browser, and a large dark fiber network it owns, can now provide broadband to everyone and access a much larger market to show its advertisements to.
It’s very similar to the free service advertiser based business model TV networks started out with.
Google is finally getting around to satisfying the mobile user web crowd demand by making an editable version of Google Documents available soon to both Ipad and Android devices. Note that Blackberry users will be left on the outside looking in.
This is just one more instance where Apple and Google have attacked Blackberry’s business customer base and are slowly taking away Blackberry’s long established dominance.
It has not gone unnoticed by Google that one of the most popular Apple apps is it’s multi-touch iWork suite of productivity applications for iPad with Pages, Keynote and Numbers.
The Google apps include their versions of Powerpoint, Excel, and Word and now claim about 3 million businesses use the service.
Google says some 30 million people use its cloud based Google documents service and while Microsoft’s Office suite is still the biggie in office software space, Google docs succeeds by making it easier for groups to collaborate.
Before Google wheels out the new docs software it plans to enhance security for its mobile users with a new two step verification process. It will involve a password plus a one time sign in with a verification code for the users mobile phone.
Facebook has a network of about 500 million users, and 100 million of them use Facebook apps from Iphone or Android.
As more and more computer users move away from the desktop to smartphones and other mobile devices, this section of the web is becoming a test of which manufacturers can deliver the best combo of hardware, software, and apps for the user.
Free software producers such as Facebook and Google leverage their user traffic by displaying ads to earn revenue. Facebook already does this and has people on its team who helped create software for both Iphone and Android.
In a Techcrunch report it is suggested that Facebook is at work developing software which will be deeply integrated into the Facebook database that no other competitor has access to. The software will run on an Android based smartphone specifically engineered for Facebook.
Facebook has denied they are building a smartphone but the denial was worded in a such a way that it’s still possible the software above is being developed, but because they aren’t actually building the hardware they can deny they are building a smartphone.
It should be remembered that Google denied it was building a smartphone to while it was quietly creating the Android software.
Maybe there’s more than meets the eye here and explains why Apple and Facebook couldn’t agree to provide Apple’s new iPhone4 users direct access to Facebook via an API.
A report by Gartner Research says that the free fast rising smartphone software developed by Google, and the Symbian software used by mobile phone giant Nokia, will together have 60% of the market by 2014.
Symbian now runs on about 47% of the smartphones sold and dominates the lower end of the market. iPhone and Android have cut into Nokia smartphone sales severely and its sales are expected to drop off to as low as 30%. Nokia has just replaced their CEO with Stephen Elpo in an effort to stop their slide in the up scale smartphone market.
Android sales however are expected by Gartner to blow by both iPhone and Blackberry and become about 18% of the market this year. Manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, and Samsung have jumped on the Android bandwagon and flooded the market lately with a wide range of smartphones boosting Android’s share.
Android in 2009 only had about 4% of the market and Blackberry had about 20%. Gartner expects RIM’s sales to drop to about 18% this year and for Android to about match that. In 4 years he sees Nokia and Android running neck and neck each with about 30% of the market. He expects Apple to have about 15% of the market in 2014.
