Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Low-lying fruit is essentially the casual reader market.
Which, yes, is the best they can hope for in the near term.
I'm just thinking that casual readers are a non-trivial market, especially since neither Apple nor Google--the current non-Amazon brands mining that market--offer a PC solution.
Rather than leave the field to Amazon, MS first tried to partner with NOOK (who failed them miserably) and now with Ingram.
As I said, it's not for me, but it's an attempt to bring a bit more competition to the ebook world. Who knows, "maybe the horse will sing."
As, for the Oracle ruling, it is a bit more than the SCO linux lawsuits.
Remember that ZDNET coverage is enterprise-focused, while sister site CNET is consumer-focused. So the ZDNET author is coming at it from the point of view of corporate line of business app developers. These developers are very risk-adverse. (The same people who wait for the first service pack before migrating to new versions of Windows.)
So it's not panic: it's a recognition that corporate IT types need certainty and will not stick with a development environment that might expose them to legal claims.
Since the court ruling is about the use of the APIs, not just the implementation of the APIs, it impacts all Android apps, not just the OS itself. Absent Oracle saying they will not sue app developers no IT department is going to risk having to explain to their CEOs why Oracle is suing them over an inhouse app.
The case is headed straight for the SCOTUS but that will take years.
In the meantime new IT app development will have to be leery of Android as a development environment.
It's the nature of the beast: corporate managers don't really trust their IT departments and many see them as a necessary evil. That's why so many outsource to IBM, DELL, HP, etc.
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The Oracle case is indeed "a bit more" than the SCO one. An unfortunate parallel with SCO is the uncertainty and the threat to third parties, in SCO's case end users, in this case app developers. And, of course, the possibility of selling licences as a form of insurance until the matter is finally decided. Unfortunately whilst SCO's case seems to have had little merit, the same cannot be said of Oracle's. I expect SCOTUS will hear the matter, but there are of course no guarantees. Where I thought the ZDNet article was going overboard is its talk of an imminent mass exodus from Android, particularly one involving a boom in IOS and a resurgence of Windows Phone. It's not that it is impossible, but I am not expecting it to happen, conservatism and potential risk notwithstanding. There simply does not seem to be an acceptable alternative to reach all of those Android users, though there may be a lot of money to be made by anyone who can quickly provide such an alternative. I haven't followed the situation too closely but there were a number of alternatives under development, some of which could actually run Android software, though I would be very surprised if they were able to manage this without the use of Android API's.
There will certainly be a lot of nervous developers around, especially the larger ones, who will no doubt be seeking advice as to their exposure. I'm no expert in US law nor am I am aware of Google's full Android licensing terms. I'm simply not sure what exposure developers may have over and above Google's exposure. The damages situation alone is fascinating. If only Sun had held on!