How Teleca can help make your Android plans a success

At the end of 2007 Android was just a vague idea of a new, open, mobile handset platform backed by the Google brand and a new foundation called the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) to drive its future development.

During 2008 and with the launch of the G1 phone, Android turned into a new market hype that everyone was curious about, where it’s heading and if there is big business to be made. “How could one get a commercial phone based on Android out on the market in a short timeframe? Everyone had a closer look at this new mobile platform and despite the risk of fragmentation and a missing roadmap, all parties came to the conclusion that, yes, Android will be one of the major mobile handset platforms,” says Robert Kempf, Director RTOS/Linux Platform Solutions at Teleca with responsibility for Android.

“Entering 2009, the big challenge is to bring Android into a myriad of commercial products. In addition to deploying Android in mobile handsets, MIDs, Netbooks, consumer equipment and automotive infotainment systems are targets for Android platform based solutions,” Robert continues.

Teleca invested early in creating the knowledge base required to help our customers be more successful on Android. Although it currently seems that Android experts spring up like mushrooms overnight, many of them have only scratched the surface. Our in-depth technical knowledge and ongoing dialog with all major stakeholders in the Android ecosystem is the key to giving our customers guidance in making their Android project a success. Creating an Android based product requires a multitude of skills in many different areas, ranging from Linux kernel know-how to phone production process flow insight.

As there is still uncertainty in the market on the current capabilities of the Android platform and the feature roadmap, Teleca is active in monitoring and assessing the Android platform against current market requirements to identify a comprehensive set of features which are missing. “The question 'Do I need to invest in this missing feature or will someone else?' is difficult to answer directly. However, based on our feature analysis we can give guidance in identifying features for differentiation and features which will most probably be part of the Android base platform accessible from Android open source,” Robert explains.

Besides being the partner of choice for implementing solutions for differentiation, Teleca is actively promoting the future development of the base platform by offering tailored business models to Android ecosystem players which help them share their investment in non-differentiating feature development and reducing their time-to-market. “There are still manyfeatures left which any mobile handset should support and why should one of the players in the Android ecosystem invest in this feature alone?.” Robert comments.

The risk of fragmentation will be a problem if many of the Android adopters create their own, proprietary distribution and branch off too far from official releases instead of trying to be close to them. “Considering that there will be three to four official Android releases per year and bearing in mind that passing the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) will be required to sell the product as an Android device, it is obvious that maintenance of Android  software baseline will be of high importance,” says Robert. “To help minimize fragmentation Teleca offers maintenance service for components or entire stacks of the Android platform. This will ensure that the creation of a multitude of products on Android, based on the latest official releases will be facilitated.

Today many Android adopters are in their product definition phase and have some difficulties in identifying the major issues and challenges to be solved on this new platform. To support our customers with the required technical expertise around Android and to guide them when it comes to what to expect from the community and what to consider as a required investment, Teleca offers deep-dive workshops to explore together the best way forward toward a successful Android based product.

With our vast track record from working with different mobile platforms, Teleca can support silicon suppliers, handset manufacturers, operators and mobile internet services providers to make their Android plans a success story.