Googarola -

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc... — Image via CrunchBase

Does it really matter garbage in is still garbage out. Or to use yet another cliche “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear.”

Honestly it appears that the once mighty Google has run out of show stoppers. They have not innovated anything new in years. To be truthful they are lagging behind in almost every market that they are in. Sure they are still the 800 pound gorilla of search but there are cheetah’s hot on their heals.

Obviously this move is one out of desperation and smart phone market leader Apple has nothing to fear right now. However were I Apple I would seriously consider a Nokia acquisition to tuck some valuable patents away for a rainy day. I mean let’s be honest who else but Apple has the cash for that right now? But this isn’t about Apple.

Steve & Apple Inc. — Image by marcopako  via Flickr

It’s about mobile desktop convergence and protecting ones bread and butter core. As with just about everything else that Google does this is all about protecting their search business. As we technojunkies move off the desktop onto hand held devices we will change how we use the net to access the information we need and Google wants desperately to be a part of that future. Why else did they create Android or even Chrome OS for that matter then give it away for FREE.

The bigger fish to fry is the predicament both Samsung and HTC are left with. Do they continue to invest in Android or shift to something else? Both companies have very strong Android offerings and honestly some solid hardware. The big issue if they dump droid then what will they run with? Let’s hope that it’s not Windows because that would be a great disservice to the wonderful products they both have produced.

Perhaps it would be best if Nokia, Samsung and HTC banded together and developed a new OS they could market? Perhaps they should dump Android and roll with a page out of the Apple play book and deploy a mobile BSD based OS. Honestly this might be their best course of action as they can commercially derive a new mobile operating system from NetBSD or even FreeBSD just like Apple. If done properly they could even charge a minor licensing fee for the OS to other manufacturers like HP who just ditched their PALM WebOS purchase. I’ll discuss that at a later time but if HP were smart they would join this consortium and undo the screw up of the last 24 hours.

Image via CrunchBase

This new mobile BSD consortium could use the licensing fees to fund R&D which would lead to richer solutions. More importantly it has a higher likelihood of success because it would be in business to further the mobile business not as the death knell to proper up some other core entity. In addition if properly managed the likelihood that they would win important open source developer buy-in is greater especially if they offer free available tools on the source BSD OS.

FreeBSD's mascot is the generic BSD daemon, al... — Image via Wikipedia

Truthfully this wouldn’t be much different from what Apple is currently offering with Xcode on Mac OS X. Therefore it would be logical for the mobileBSD group to offer development tools on the BSD that they derived the hand held’s OS from. The key will be to ensure that this venture can support the common push technologies and do it better than Android. They will have to drive it hard into the enterprise in order to win.

In either case these manufacturers have to do something astoundingly quick or they face the same prospect as RIM and Microsoft. Of these companies only Microsoft has the funding to stay in this game for long. RIM is already nearly a dream that once was. Sure they have a strong presence in the enterprise space but people are pissed off about having to buy BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) to support their devices.

They also do not want to have to maintain additional server hardware this is why businesses are deploying Mac OS X Servers to support their iPhone fleet. I have also seen many businesses who have a large investment in Microsoft Exchange mandate that only phones that support Activesync shall be supported. In both cases they have abandoned Blackberry. But that has more to do with the device not being cool enough for executives to carry.

The bottom line here is that Google’s move to buy Motorola Mobility is obviously a protectionism reaction. They are afraid right now because they are playing second fiddle to other companies like Facebook and Twitter. This is why they have rolled out g+. Once again a topic for another discussion. The truth will be revealed in the future of this I am certain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mikel King has been a leader in the Information Technology Services field for over 20 years. He is currently the CEO of Olivent Technologies, a professional creative services partnership in NY. Additionally he is currently serving as the Secretary of the BSD Certification group as well as a Senior Editor for the BSD News Network and JAFDIP.