As the Holiday Device Frenzy Plays Out, Android is the Horse to Bet On

by Sam Dean - Nov. 24, 2010Comments (0)

Are you set to whip out your wallet and do some serious holiday shopping? This Friday is Black Friday in the U.S., when deep discounts will be available for all kinds of items, including the technology pickings that you've had your eye on, and the day marks the official start of the holiday shopping frenzy. There is a new report from market researchers at IDC that says that 28 percent of the projected $127 billion to be spent online this holiday season will go toward smartphones and mobile gadgets like the iPad. Android is likely to be a huge winner this season, but Android tablets and Google's Chrome OS--which many had predicted would be a big force by this year's holiday season--are not.

According to IDC, not only will shoppers be shelling out for mobile devices this holiday season, but they'll be using their mobile devices to do the shopping:

"It is clear that MSM-commerce already has an influence on consumers' perception of brand value and their shopping intentions. We believe the retailers with superior mobile and social media commerce strategies in place will have a decided advantage."

That could be where Apple has an advantage with its new iPhone. I've been getting a blitz of Black Friday-focused discount offers from Apple by email and through social channels, and I see no unified marketing effort that parallels Apple's on the Android side of the fence. That's one of the hurdles Android faces: Who owns it from the perspective of unified marketing?

On the other hand, Nielsen and many other research outlets predict huge things for Android, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently predicted that it will become the dominant smartphone platform. I'm positive many Android handsets and devices will move this holiday season.

Android tablets, though, are a disappointment so far, after so many people predicted that they would compete with the iPad this holiday season. That's true in spite of the fact that Acer has just announced two Android tablets, and Samsung's Galaxy Android tablet. So far the iPad appears to have a complete lock on the tablet market, and there are rumblings that April will bring the iPad's second coming.

Likewise, Google's Chrome OS still has not arrived in netbooks after a very long wait for it--so long that the netbook market itself has died down. We may yet see Chrome OS devices show up before the Christmas holiday, but the fact that devices aren't ready for Black Friday says a lot about Google's (probably diminished) focus on its much ballyhooed OS.

From the open source perspective, despite the lack of one uber-marketeer to pitch the platform, Android is the platform to watch as the device frenzy plays out between now and late December.