Amazon has forked Android better than any other company

October 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Mark Suster: Amazon has forked Android better than any other company

BY NATHANIEL MOTT 
ON OCTOBER 24, 2013

Any company can use Android in its products. Google has made the operating system freely available to any who wish to use it, which has certainly contributed to its position in the smartphone marketand the sheer number of devices that rely on Android to function. Lately the company has been trying to balance this commitment to a free and open Android with its desire to make sure its mobile efforts aren’t obviated by the same companies that have used the operating system to achieve dominance. Google is walking the line between “open” and “closed.”“While Android is open, it’s more of a ‘look but don’t touch’ kind of open. You’re allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google’s blessing,” says Ars Technica reviews editor Ron Amadeo in a blog post detailing Google’s efforts. “The second you try to take Android and do something that Google doesn’t approve of, it will bring the world crashing down upon you.”

Google has to approve any Android device that wishes to allow access to the Google Play store, the primary apps marketplace on Android. Without that approval manufacturers must choose between releasing a device that allows access to a different app store or releasing a device that can’t download new software from an apps marketplace at all. Either option prevents consumers from interacting with the best versions of Google apps like Maps, Gmail, or Google Search.

Basically, companies that wish to use Android without Google’s blessing have to recreate almost everything that makes a modern smartphone so compelling in the first place. And no company has done that better than Amazon, at least according to Upfront Ventures partner Mark Suster.

“What’s the one company that’s really trying to fork Android, that’s really trying to build its own version, changing the browser, and trying to build better technology? Amazon,” Suster said during our PandoMonthly event on Wednesday. “I think the great wars of the future, over the Internet, are going to be Google, Apple, Amazon, and Samsung. They’re all building mobile devices, they’re all building mobile ecosystems, and they’re all going to have to address video. That’s the future.”

Not bad for a company whose primary use of Android is the behind-the-scenes operation of a glorified sales catalog.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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