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To be sure, Samsung isn't in any kind of trouble, and isn't likelyto be so any time soon. On Thursday it launched the Galaxy S3, thelatest addition to its flagship range of smartphones. JuniperResearch expects Samsung to remain the No.1 smartphone manufacturerthis quarter. The next iPhone upgrade is expected around the thirdquarter. "Android has done wonders for them," says India-based Gartneranalyst Anshul Gupta. But still the company has its critics. They worry that Samsung hasyet to address the central contradiction of it making devices thatuse someone else's operating system. By licensing the free AndroidOS from Google, Samsung saves itself millions of dollars insoftware development costs and license fees, but leaves itselfdependent on Google. Horace Dediu, a former analyst for Nokia who now works as aconsultant and runs an influential blog at , said asimilar debate went on at Nokia in the early years of thesmartphone. The conclusion, he said, was obvious: Microsoft hadshown that whoever owned the operating system could relegate everyhardware manufacturer to be a commodity player. "So it's a puzzle to me now, years and years on," he said, "to seecompanies like Samsung continuing to operate within the operatingsystem and ecosystem that other vendors control." And Samsung, of course, is not alone. Nokia itself has abandonedits own operating system, Symbian, in favor of Microsoft's WindowsPhone. But the consequences for Samsung and other Androidmanufacturers are visible: While each has customized the Androidinterface, these are "veneers", in the words of Dediu, which"dissolve as soon as you jump into an application of the coreplatform." These tweaks also contribute to what is called "fragmentation". AsGoogle rolls out updates to its operating system, they must firstbe tested and adapted by manufacturers against their owncustomizations before being pushed out to the handset. This slowsdown the update process and means many users are stuck with earlierversions of Android. Nearly two thirds of Android devices, forexample, run Gingerbread, a version of the operating system thatwas released in late 2010. This further weakens Samsung's efforts to differentiate its phonesbeyond merely the look and hardware specifications. Analysts sayGoogle's efforts to reduce fragmentation by limiting what can bealtered in more recent versions of Android compounds such problems.Also, smartphones look increasingly similar as they shift fromkeyboards to touchscreens. All this creates a conflict of interest between the two playersthat at some point may burst into the open. While Samsung says ithas welcomed Google's purchase of Motorola, a handset maker,because of the US firm's commitment to supporting Android and itspartners, it has also taken steps towards some degree ofindependence. For example it last year introduced its own Android software store,Samsung Apps, which has about 40,000 apps - a handful compared toApple's 500,000 for the iPhone and 450,000 for Android. And lastmonth it announced its own mobile advertising service, AdHubMarket, apparently competing with Google's own ad distributionnetwork - its main source of revenue. I am an expert from silicone-wristwatch.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Silicone Slap Watches Manufacturer , Digital Sports Wrist Watch Manufacturer, Waterproof Silicone Watch,and more.
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