Competition is something we all face. It is often said that the competition makes you better, keeps you on your toes, hones your abilities. With that in mind, today I write about the competition.

A large North American handset vendor introduced its first phone based on the Android operating system yesterday. As a member of the OHA, I think it is great. Do I want to develop better technology?  Do I want to deliver that technology in better products than Moto? Do I want to beat them in the market? Of course! Yet, I believe it was a very important moment for Sony Ericsson and the rest of the industry.

The landscape in the mobile ecosystem is rapidly changing. One of the forces of change is open operating systems#[1]. The real power of an open OS is concentration. It allows more of the company to concentrate on differentiators because the development of table stakes are a shared responsibility.

There are three things that will drive success for open mobile operating systems. This is true for Symbian, Android and the rest.

1. Adoption by multiple parties so the costs are truly shared.
2. The ability to differentiate so that the competition can flourish and continue to share the enabler costs.
3. A resultant large installed base to incent 3^rd party developers to create a thriving ecosystem.

I know there was open OS in mobile before the latest wave of adoption but they weren’t really widely adopted. With Android and Symbian both open sourced that will change. So why am I happy that our friends in Chicago made the announcement?

It is another milestone on the road to open operating systems; a proof point for others that multiple vendors are committed to launching open OS. Even more importantly was the announcement of their differentiating feature.#[2] , multiple vendors will get behind a shared enabler. Whether they are successful with their differentiating feature or it ultimately fails, is unimportant (at least to Sony Ericsson) . What is important is the proof point, the industry commitment and open OS momentum.

So why am I happy? Because now competition starts!

#[1] It could be argued that open operating systems are a result of the changing landscape more that a force but that is a later post.

#[2] And not just because the feature tries to own my identity and completely reinforces Identity Crisis