Adroid’s Opportunity against Apple?

China Mobile, the largest worldwide mobile operator (measured by number of subscribers) is launching its 3G operations with the Ophone, which runs Android Operating System. On the mean time, China Unicom, is finalizing an agreement with Apple, and it will be an exclusivity agreement

China Mobile adds between 5 and 7 Million subscribers a month while China Unicom adds between 1 and 2 million subscribers (measured during the last six months).

Smart phones account for approximately 10% of the 2G subscribers (or 0,8-1 Million new smart phones a month!!!!!). But with the launching of 3G is expected to increase this percentage, as it did in western countries and Korea.

To have an idea of what this means, bear in mind that at the US, phones based on Android have reached 1 Million new phones over six months. In China, Android based phones could easily reach a million a month.

You could also read about Android and iPhone in China at Comment1 Comment2 Comment3

China could be the battleground of the new generation of US based mobile solutions

Spotify challenges Apple’s iTunes

Spotify is the company that most analists believe could challange the dominance of iTunes at the digital music business.

Today, Financial Times (FT) confirms that Spotify got a strong backing by a number of high profile investors.

You can learn more on Spotify at WordPress  and about some of its latest innovations at some other blogs (one and two)

Schmidt departure from Apple… more of Google into mainstream

Few days ago, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) started an investigation on why a Google application was blocked from working on Apple’s iPhone.  Few months ago the US FTC started an investigation into directorships, including the Board of Apple.

Yesterday, Schmidt, CEO of Google leaves Apple’s Board.

This is another confirmation that Google is coming onto the main street of Sw/Hw PC industry. The announcement of Android and then of Chrome OS operating system is placing Google in direct competition with not only Microsoft, but Apple and a number of other relevant players.

This is a challenge that could mean the beginning of a major dominance or the beginning of becoming a mature player not longer that aggressively innovator