분야
docxIntroduction
Why Google’s Android
Unique Characteristics of Android
1. Open and Free
2. Higher Application User Retention
3. Mobility to Any Electric Gadget
Choice of Interviews
Interviews with two experts
Implications of the interviews
Suggestions to the Korean Companies
Future Prospects of Android
Conclusion
All over the world, mobile phones that use Android as its OS are being flooding into the market every month. Even in Korea, there are more than 10 Android based phones that have been launched in to the mobile market. The ‘Android Boy,’ main character of Google’s Android is dominating the screens as advertisements since multiple companies are using Android as their OS into their mobile phones. Experts are expecting that the growth of the tablet market will empower Google’s Android even more, which will be a competitive burden for Apple to handle with.
Choice of Interviewees
Considering the topic of our term project, we first thought that a smart phone expert, particularly of Korean market, or someone from Google who is in charge of or involved in Android would be the best choice as our interviewees. However, as expected, due to the recent smart phone fad, people with such qualifications seemed to be too busy.
However, they were not the only suitable interview candidates. We figured that hearing from experts in the academic field who have conducted significant amount of research in this field can be another idea. Also, the fact that we have read a lot of up-to-date news articles in class and took a glimpse of the smart phone market itself, hearing from experts in the academic field would have been meaningful.
So we have contacted two professors: Professor Yehoon Lee and Professor Heejune Ahn from Seoul National University of Technology. The first interviewee, Prof. Yehoon Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, whose major and research interests are mobile wireless communication, broadcast communication, CDMA/OFDM Modem, an theories on digital communication. He has experience working at the research center for SK Telecomm, LG Electronics, and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.
The second professor we interviewed, Prof. Heejune Ahn is an associate professor at the Department of Control and Instrumentation Engineering and his major research areas are networked video transmission, modem protocol SW and protocol software environments, implementation of system software, etc. He mentioned that he himself is one of the contributors for Android-based mobile products. In fact, his own website is titled as ‘Prof. Ahn’s Android Lab.’ From this fact, we assumed that he is one of the experts in the market of Android in Korea.
Interviews with the two experts
The interview was conducted on June 5th, 2010 at the professors’ office for around 20 minutes, respectively. The questions we have prepared for the interview is attached at the end of the report as Appendix I.
After the interview, we analyzed what our interviewees said and figured out the contents can be falling under three parts; first, merits and characteristics of Android, second, future market prospect of Android, and third, the absence of the Korean companies countering Android.
First, Google’s Android has unique characteristics and relative advantages when compared to its competitors such as Apple. The very first and most outstanding feature of Android is its openness. Anybody can access to Android on this website, downloading platforms and thus it has potential to be implemented and in many devices. In fact, a consortium of 71 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.
Also, users can use the Android Market, which is Google’s online software store for Android devices. The “Market” which refers to an application program is preinstalled on Android devices and it allows Android users to download applications. A number of such applications are developed by third-party developers. The Android Market currently contains tens of thousands of applications, being frequently updated.
In addition, Android provides free access to Google’s killer applications including, Google research, Gmail, Google Talk, Youtube, Google Calendar, Address book, etc. Android is currently rapidly chasing Apple’s App Store in dramatic speed. The number of applications at the Android Market was only around 1560 in July 2009 but it rapidly soared up to around 8000 in March 2010.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
2. http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/06/19/android-users-are-stickier-than-iphone-users/
3. http://blue.snut.ac.kr/~viscom/
4. http://plaza1.snut.ac.kr/~y.lee/
5. http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
6. http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/
7. http://www.android.com/market/#app=com.epocrates
8. http://loved.pe.kr/1291
9. ‘아이패드, 출시 한달여만에 100만대 돌파’, Seoul Finance, May 4th 2010
10. http://www.kbench.com/hardware/?no=83880&sc=1
11. Statistics by KT 경제경영연구소
12. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
13. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-share-in-your-country.html
