Category: Mobile

While it used to be that the term “open source” conjured up socially lost Linux cave-dwellers, in recent years, open source has gone decidedly mainstream. Even if you don’t partake in dedicated offerings such as Firefox, Chrome, Adium or Android, there are probably open-source components in much of the software that you do use. But while the number of open source-focused startups is on the rise, proprietary software players are also increasingly acquiring open-source companies, and in the process, altering the courses of important platforms and applications. These aren’t necessarily good trends.

Matt Asay recently predicted that this year would usher in lots of acquisitions of small cloud computing players by big software companies, specifically citing open-source players such as Cloudera (which supports the ever more popular Hadoop, an open-source query platform) as potential targets. Meanwhile big-ticket acquisitions of open source-focused companies have proliferated, as evidenced by Oracle’s (stalled) acquisition of Sun Microsystems, VMware’s SpringSource buy and its rumored purchase of Zimbra, among others. (The Zimbra acquisition may be confirmed this week, according to numerous reliable sources.)

One has to ask, though, how healthy it is for increasingly important open-source platforms and applications to come under the wing of huge, proprietary software companies. Probably the best example to cite on that topic is the ongoing car crash that is Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Sun, of course, is an almost entirely open source-focused company, and the European Commission has spent nearly a year considering whether to allow Oracle to acquire it. In the meantime, Sun customers have flocked to competitors.

There are concerns that Oracle may shut down Sun’s MySQL open-source database division, as it competes with some of Oracle’s proprietary products. MySQL founder Monty Widenius has been aggressively echoing such concerns, and has a blog at HelpMySQL.org petitioning for support. In light of some of Sun’s other open-source offerings, and overlap with Oracle’s products, Oracle may in fact likely let several projects linger.

Even Google’s involvement with its own open-source Android operating system could inhibit free development around it going forward. For Google, one of the big benefits that all Android phones bring is steering users into the company’s lucrative search-and-ad ecosystem. With the release of today’s Nexus One Android-based phone — which takes the company’s commercial stake in Android handsets to two (Droid being the first) — could Android itself be increasingly influenced by Google’s proprietary interests? Just as Microsoft leverages Windows for the benefit of its own applications, Google could do the same with Android. The Open Android Alliance is already developing versions of Android devoid of Google applications due to these types of concerns.

Sun Micrososytems is one of only three big, U.S. public companies focused almost entirely on open source. If it gets swallowed up, that will leave just Red Hat and Novell. Open-source pundits are predicting that small, promising open-source players will be snapped up by bigger fish this year. And Google’s relationship to Android gets ever murkier as it sinks its commercial hooks deeper into the platform, billing its own offerings as superphones relative to other Android phones.

In his post “What Rankles in Open Source Buyouts,” Dana Blankenhorn takes the position of an enthusiastic open-source community member woefully witnessing the sale of an open-source project to a big software company when he addresses the project’s leaders, imploring: “There is such a thing as moral equity. What was us is now you, and you sold out — why shouldn’t I be offended, and why should I trust anyone like you again?” Indeed, for many of the suddenly flourishing open-source platforms and applications out there, independence and the unbeaten path may lead to the brightest possible community-driven future.

In-post image courtesy of Flickr user me and the sysop.

First off, forget the phone. The big news out of Google today wasn’t the shiny new Nexus One, but the web store that the company created as a way to get a certain class of Android devices it calls superphones into consumer’s hands and regain some control over its open-source OS. That’s right, the phone may be sweet, but the business disruption today came from the channel.

With its web store Google is trying to create a top tier of Android devices and a way for it to control the user experience for the operating system — currently a challenge for the OS, especially when it’s compared with the buttoned-down iPhone ecosystem. If Google sets the bar high enough for a phone to be listed in its web store, the consumer knows that handset meets a certain level of quality.

That will help deal with the complaints about apps not working correctly on the device because the Android platform is too advanced for older hardware, and other issues that are keeping Android gadgets behind the iPhone in the user experience category. Andy Rubin, VP of engineering at Google, today at an Android press event defended the difficulties with the older hardware, saying that backwards compatibility between the hardware and software for mobile phones would stall innovation.

He kept repeating that the Nexus One is like his laptop from four or five years ago, a machine that wouldn’t run today’s version of Windows, he pointed out. Maybe, but the initial Android phone was released only a year and three months ago.

Sanjay Jha, the co-CEO of Motorola, which is a Google partner building Android handsets, told me after the event that Motorola won’t focus solely on designing handsets for the high-end users that Google appears to be targeting with its web store, but will instead target a range of consumers with a variety of Android handsets. He stressed that Google’s Nexus One and the store itself are trying to serve a particular audience segment. But Motorola won’t abandon Android.

Jha wouldn’t answer questions on how revenue would be shared (if at all) between Motorola and Google for Motorola devices sold through the Google web platform. The Motorola Droid is listed as part of the Google web store, but consumers actually have to go to the Verizon web site in order to pick it up. Is this because Droid doesn’t make Google’s grade?  Rubin said that more operators and devices will be showcased on the store soon (including the upcoming Nexus One for the Verizon network coming in the spring).

Andy Rubin with Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha at Mobilize 09

However, Jha’s seeming nonchalance over questions about how Motorola felt about Google taking such an active role in designing hardware was belied by his late arrival at the event (he blamed traffic) and his rapid exit after the press Q&A ended. I saw HTC CEO Peter Chou answering questions for more than an hour, whereas Jha was gone 10 minutes after the questions ended.

My guess is the Google phone will be less disruptive to the carriers, but a real problem for the handset makers which are already seeing their profits erode. But if Google helps make the store into a place where consumers can make sure their Android device can run the apps they want to use, it will likely win.

Let’s face it, when it comes to the Nexus One, aka the Google Phone, there’s really only one thing you want to know: Is it better than the iPhone? The answer, unfortunately, is not all that simple. But after using the device for nearly 10 days, I am convinced that this new phone is the best Android device made to date.

Rather than doing a typical review of its features -– frankly all that stuff has been blogged to death — I wanted to share with you what it’s like to live with this device, day in and day out. In other words, to tell you whether or not the Nexus One is worth the hype.

The only way to do that was to make it my primary mobile device. So I put away my BlackBerry, banished my SIM-less iPhone, and switched my personal mobile number to T-Mobile USA, the preferred carrier for the Nexus One. (AT&T’s 2G network will support the device, but not on its 3G network.) With that, I was ready. My impressions are broken down into two categories: Appearance & Features and Usability & Extensibility.

Appearance & Features: This phone is fast, thin and has a gorgeous high-quality WVGA screen. It’s made by HTC and runs Android 2.1, the latest version of the OS. The 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor makes it as fast as the Droid, and it has a 5-megapixel camera (both still and video). It has the ability to add up to 8 GB of storage via a Micro SD card, which makes it a great device for taking photographs, shooting quick videos and listening to music.

From a purely design standpoint, the Nexus One is within striking distance of its primary rival, the iPhone. Just as Infiniti and Lexus are almost as good as Mercedes, based on sheer looks, the Nexus One is a lot closer to the iPhone than all other Android phones. While it isn’t as iconic as the Apple device, it is a well-designed, feature-rich product that stands apart in a sea of Android handsets.

Usability & Extensibility: Looks, they say, aren’t everything. And they’re right. If anyone has ambitions to beat the iPhone, then they need to bring their A-game, emphasizing ease-of-use and seamlessness when it comes to the user experience and from a software standpoint, simplicity. Here the Google Phone misses the mark.

First, let’s focus on the things the Nexus One gets right: Connectivity is easy to achieve, including for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections. The Wi-Fi finder in particular is pretty simple — much as it is on previous generations of Android phones. The first time you access the phone, it asks if you have a Google account. If you do, just enter the information and it painlessly syncs everything — calendar, contacts, Gmail and GTalk. If you have a Google Voice account, the device gives you an option to call out using your Google Voice number. Other Google apps — such as Google Maps — are perfectly integrated with the OS.

This integration made my life easier as our entire company’s operations are based on Google apps. The browser, too, is rock-solid.

But that’s where the seamlessness ends. Android, including the new 2.1 version, isn’t as smooth as the iPhone. One needs to make more of an effort on the Google Phone to get things done. I guess you can blame that on the lack of multitouch features. Now don’t get me wrong — Android 2.1 running on Nexus One is pretty darn good. Just not as good as an iPhone.

It feels somehow disjointed  – much like all the other Android phones. When you install non-Google applications, they don’t quite have the tight integration of Google-based apps. Of course, that’s the downside of an open platform, one not entirely controlled by a single entity. Google might have to make this issue a top priority in the coming months, something I discussed with Google’s head honcho of mobile, Andy Rubin.

I think of extensibility in terms of applications. Platforms are successful if, and only if, people build on them. Such building is one of the reasons that the iPhone has been so successful. The kludgy Android Market and its wares are Google’s Achilles’ heel, in my opinion. The company needs to fix that. I downloaded some of my favorite apps, such as FourSquare and Seesmic, for the Google phone, but not anywhere close to the number of useful apps that I run on my iPhone/iPod touch. Unless Google spends a whole lot of money and effort improving its app store, it will continue to lag its main rival.

What really doesn’t work for me: I’ve had a tough time mastering the phone part of the device. It’s just not as smooth an experience as it should be.

Moreover, the touch-based typing on Nexus One has been hard to master. I keep sending half-finished text messages. My emails are full of mistakes and I can feel my ineptness at typing on the Nexus One every single minute. And I don’t mind touchscreens. I have, on occasion, typed out entire posts on the iPhone using the WordPress app. Nexus One made me yearn for my BlackBerry Bold 9700. (Indeed, I’m back to the Bold as of this morning.)

What Surprised Me: There are two things about the Nexus One that took me by surprise. First, it has only three points of distraction — one less than the iPhone: the on-off switch, the volume slider and the rollerball. Second, the device has remarkable battery life. It lasts almost a full day even with brightness at the maximum level, Wi-Fi and 3G turned on, and high talk time — roughly 1.5 hours.

Bottom Line: If there was no such thing as an iPhone, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the Nexus One is the best touchscreen smartphone available. It certainly is the best Android device on the market, hands down. But compared to the iPhone, it’s not as smooth or effortless to use. Perhaps in time it will be.

And at $530 a pop, the Nexus One is expensive. Plus, it’s married to a frail 3G network. T-Mobile USA has been rolling out its high-speed network across the country, but in San Francisco, the performance was lukewarm at best. If you can overlook these problems, and if you don’t like the iPhone, then this is the smartphone for you. I’m giving it a solid 7.5 out of 10.

I had hoped that today’s announcement of Google’s phone would be another iPhone-like bomb set to disrupt wireless carriers and bring a future of affordable, open and ubiquitous mobile connectivity to pass. Apple pried open the carrier ecosystem with the iPhone, and its decisions to open up geolocation information and create an app store hurt the business model the carriers rely on even more than the incredible data use it ushered in.

I’d anticipated that given Google’s focus on opening up the 700 MHz auction, pushing white spaces broadband and investment in WiMAX, the Nexus One also would be a hardware-based crowbar. It isn’t, and Google so far seems to be working with the carriers even as it offers its own web store for Android devices. But if Google wants to bring about affordable and open wireless to everyone, as well as encourage more competition in the wireless industry, here are a few steps it should take to bring that about.

Build a phone that can roam: Right now, cell phones are using different wireless technologies and are tuned to various spectrum bands, so unlike choosing say, a WiFi-enabled device, one has to know what type of cell technology you want to operate the device on, such as a CDMA or HSPA network, and you have to know which spectrum you need the signals to travel over.

Without being able to buy a cellular phone or device with the right radios that are tuned to the correct swaths of spectrum, manufacturers still have to choose which carriers they want to build for. This means costs for components can’t drop as rapidly as possible and that some carriers might have a hard time convincing folks to build devices for them.

A software-defined radio could be the key for such a universal handset. Google could contribute dollars or talent to making SDRs  faster, cheaper and more power-efficient so they work inside mobile phones.

Get carriers to ditch SIM cards: The SIM card is the key to the cellular kingdom. Unlike access to a Wi-Fi network or even a corporate LAN, which requires a password and a user name to access, cellular networks only open up to devices that contain the right SIM card. Carriers say they need SIM cards because they’re more secure than a user name and password combo.

But if a consumer wants to put his device on a different network, he has to swap out the SIM or even the gadget itself. This is a barrier to consumers switching networks. If Google can convince a carrier to let a SIM-free device (perhaps biometric access to a network would be secure enough for carriers) onto its network, then we could see the beginning of a world where it’s easy for a device to use the best, lowest-cost network available and pricing for mobile broadband comes way down.

If Google can help build devices that can roam anywhere, across a variety of networks, including Wi-Fi, and can push carriers to find another way to authenticate people on their networks without sacrificing security, then they could release a device that could be just as disruptive as the iPhone.

Related Research: Google’s Mobile Strategy
Google’s mobile strategy is about more than just capturing new ad revenue — its about enabling innovation and boosting access.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user dahlstroms.

Andy Rubin’s business card identifies him as the Vice President of Engineering at Google. In reality, he’s the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine’s mobile chief. From the time Google snapped up his tiny startup, Android, to today, when it officially launched the first Google Phone, Rubin (and his partner Rich Miner) have been behind virtually every mobile move made by the company.

And until very recently, Rubin had maintained that Google wasn’t going to make a Google Phone. So when news of the Nexus One first broke, I was flabbergasted that after all the denials it was actually doing so. To that end, I asked him: How is Google suddenly in the hardware business?

“Google isn’t building hardware,” Rubin said. He noted how Apple’s iPhone typically carries the tag “Designed in California,” which explicitly points to that company’s hardware roots. Not so with Google. “We are not designers and there are no hardware or industrial designers on my team,” said Rubin. Instead they leave it to companies such as HTC, which has made the Nexus One.

More Google Phones to Come

“For the first time, we’re issuing purchasing orders to the manufacturers so we are now their customers,” he added, “which means we can now have more influence on the device.” That influence is quite visible in the Nexus One, as I point out in my review. And Rubin said Google is working with manufacturers in addition to HTC that also want to benefit from the sales push on Google’s web site.

Andy Rubin with Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha at Mobilize 09

Those words won’t placate some of the company’s partners, which according to my sources are livid at Google’s decision to promote the HTC-built device, which works with T-Mobile USA’s 3G network. Motorola and Verizon , which have collectively spent close to $100 million promoting the Android-based Droid, are said to be particularly miffed at this decision to launch the Google Phone. One look at the Nexus One and no one in their right mind would even consider the Droid. More importantly, imagine competing with the company that makes the OS itself.

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“People shouldn’t focus too much on the device (Nexus One),” said Rubin. “What’s more important is the strategy behind the devices.” Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing, Google is simply “going straight to the Google customers,” he said. He believes that such a strategy could fundamentally change the way people buy cell phones — in other words, over the web. Already, as he pointed out, people are buying devices (and gadgets) online.

The way I see it, Google has a couple of major problems: It’s facing a splintering of the Android experience, thanks to the growing number of user experience efforts such as HTC’s Sense. And in order to quickly get traction in the marketplace, Google needs to attract more developers. To overcome these challenges, the company needs to seed the market with what it feels is the device that best showcases Android’s capabilities.

150,000 True Fans

Rubin hopes his company can sell, at the very least, 150,000 Nexus One devices. Why? “Because if there are that many devices out there, you are likely to run into someone with a device somewhere,” he reasoned. To be clear, that number is only applicable to the U.S., even though the device will be available in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Google won’t have any trouble selling that many devices. There are more than enough fanatical users of the company’s services, such as Gmail and Google Maps, to make that happen. The Nexus One and subsequent Google Phones will continue to be tightly integrated with Google’s services.

Cell Phone As a Platform

When I asked Rubin about some of the shortcomings of the Nexus One and of the Android platform in general, he was candid in admitting that there was still work to be done. “We could have easily seeded the developers with this new device with a higher-resolution screen, but we decided to wait till the announcement was made,” he said. Now that the device has been launched, Google, he said, was looking to aggressively woo developers. Expect it to make some major announcements on that front soon.

The world has changed, Rubin argued. Up until now, the software inside the phone and the web were two different entities living in two different worlds. What Android represents is the ethos of the web brought to the cell phone world. “As a company we iterate a lot and now you have a cell-phone platform that you can quickly iterate upon,” said Rubin. “When were you able to do that on Symbian?” Ouch! (Related: Symbian Executive Rips Into Google’s Android.)

I think that’s what makes Android such as interesting platform, as I explained in my essay, The Androidification of Everything. When I asked Rubin where Android could show up next, he said it could be anywhere — from set-top boxes to large-screen devices, even desktop PCs.

Related Research: Google’s Mobile Strategy

Jon von Tetzchner

Opera Software has named Lars Boilesen as the company’s new CEO, replacing Jon S. von Tetzchner, who co-founded the Norwegian company in 1995 and has served as its head ever since. Opera will retain von Tetzchner for strategic help, but the shift to his role marks the end of an era for the company.

Long-time Opera CEO von Tetzchner announced the change himself:

“My decision to assume a new role in Opera is based on a lengthy consideration process. As outgoing Chief Executive, I leave confident in the company’s continued leadership in key markets, our strong management team, our ongoing commitment to innovation, and our robust financial foundation.”

Boilesen has held various management, sales and marketing positions at companies including Alcatel-Lucent, Tandberg Data, and Lego and was previously Opera’s chief commercial officer and a member of Opera’s board. He played a key role in positioning Opera as a cross-platform browser.

“We provide browser technology not only to nearly 100 million consumers worldwide, but also to the major players in the industry: Vodafone, T-Mobile, Nintendo, KDDI, SKT, Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony Ericsson to name but a few,” said Boileson, in a statement. He added that Opera will continue to work with OEMs and industry players to continue to push the adoption of Opera and the Opera Mobile and Mini browsers.

Opera faces more competition than ever in the browser market. Google has recently released beta versions of its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux, solidifying its cross-platform strategy. Mozilla’s Firefox browser is also available for Windows, the Mac and Linux, and many feel that these two open-source browsers are leading browser innovation.  Net Applications’ most recent browser market share data shows Chrome in third place — ahead of Apple’s Safari — with 4.6 percent global share. Firefox accounts for 24.6 percent of the market, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has 62.7 percent. Opera, meanwhile, has only 2.6 percent share.

Going forward, Mozilla and Google have their eyes squarely set on encouraging healthy ecosystems of extensions for their browsers, and both Opera and Internet Explorer have ground to make up in that area. Opera Mobile is also likely to face competition from Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile browser, now out in a release candidate version. Without a doubt, Opera’s greatest challenges will come from Google’s and Mozilla’s open source competitors.

Apple is set to jump into mobile advertising in a big way, shelling out $275 million to buy Quattro Wireless, according to All Things Digital. Which is the latest signal that 2010 will be the year of consolidation for the space.

The reported move comes two months after the iPhone maker tried and failed to enter the mobile advertising market when it lost out in its bid to land AdMob, which instead agreed to be acquired by Google for a whopping $750 million. Quattro is a relatively big player in mobile advertising, according to recent figures from IDC, claiming a 7 percent market share and generating roughly $21 million in 2009.

And while Cupertino has continued to generate impressive profits even as many competing phone makers are watching their margins be whittled away, it’s surely concerned about maintaining its own, as a host of impressive new devices come to market from competing vendors and smartphone prices continue to fall. So the company is scrambling to find new ways to monetize the mobile web and the surging uptake of wireless apps. The rise of in-app ads has led to a rapid expansion of the space since 2007, when AOL acquired Third Screen Media, Yahoo  picked up Actionality, Microsoft bought ScreenTonic and Nokia acquired Enpocket.

Some deep-pocketed players are looking to increase their presence in mobile advertising this year, and the list of potential targets is a lengthy one. Millennial Media, which according to IDC boasts an 18 percent market share, tops the list; other possible pick-ups include JumpTap and the analytics firm Flurry. Expect another round of consolidation this year as mobile apps and the wireless web continue to evolve into mass-market industries.

Image courtesy of Quattro Wireless.

As the tech world readies itself for the unveiling of Google’s Android-based — and much-hyped — Nexus One, MIPS Technologies Inc. this morning said it will team with a host of partners to showcase new Android-based offerings at this week’s CES. Among them are set-top boxes, a netbook and a social media center designed to enable consumers to consume and share TV content.

MIPS provides processors and architectures for home entertainment, portable media and communications gadgets, and today’s announcement isn’t unexpected given the company’s well-documented plans to bring Android to its entertainment offerings. MIPS is also using CES to tout its new membership in Adobe’s Open Screen Project, which aims to expand support for Flash beyond the traditional Internet to phones and other connected devices. The 18-month-old project has garnered backing from a host of media and tech heavyweights, including MTV Networks, ARM, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics and Verizon Wireless, all of which are looking to enable consumers to view web-based video on a broad range of devices, operating systems and networks.

MIPS is joined on the Android bandwagon by fellow chip company ARM, semiconductor design firms like Aricent and Mentor Graphics, and others. Meanwhile Freescale Semiconductor is working on an Android-based netbook design, as is Qualcomm. While most of the attention surrounding Android is focused on mobile — more specifically, Android vs. the iPhone operating system — the flurry of activity from those in the chip space is a clear indication that Android is attractive not just to phone makers but also to hardware vendors and service providers in a wide variety of industries. Which bodes well for the concept of the Androidification of everything.

Image courtesy Flickr user p_kirn.

About a year ago, China issued 3G licenses to its three national carriers, causing bankers, technologists and communications equipment companies to drool over the potential hundreds of millions of Chinese who would rush to buy data plans, smartphones and applications. Today, iSuppli predicts that wireless data revenue in China will rise to $19.3 billion in 2009, up from $16.3 billion in 2008.

By 2013, iSuppli analyst Will Kong estimates, data revenue in the country will surge to $31.5 billion, which still puts it at less than half of the almost $45 billion network operators scored from selling wireless data in the U.S. in 2009, according to estimates from industry analyst Chetan Sharma. But China’s spending is still nascent and spread out among many more consumers, meaning it could eventually surpass the U.S. in data revenue.

But not anytime soon. Thanks to the adoption of faster broadband through a 3G network and better web-surfing devices such as the iPhone, Chinese carriers should see non-messaging service revenue (web surfing) reach $20 billion in 2013, up by a factor of three from $6.8 billion in 2008.

Kong said Chinese carriers in 2009 will spend about $6.3 billion on mobile infrastructure equipment, up 28 percent from 2008. Spending in 2010 will decline by 2.4 percent to $6.1 billion, which may be one reason Huawei is less optimistic about its sales growth for the coming year. During the next five years, carrier spending will continue to decline but will remain at a high level of more than $5.5 billion annually.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Mobile apps that take users directly to e-commerce and other types of web sites are a growing threat to traditional search engines, according to a research note from BroadPoint AmTech, released today. While the growth of mobile apps has been heralded as a healthy trend, is it good for the Googles of the world?

Search engines derive significant revenues from commerce-related queries, including ones as basic as searching for “Amazon” or “eBay,” according to the Broadpoint AmTech note. Add to the mix rapid growth in usage of mobile apps and that they’re treating search engines as the middle man to be removed, and search engines may be in trouble, says the report.

There are four primary ways that mobile apps are disrupting standard search models online and calling for change, according to the research note:

1. Bypassing Navigational Queries. “Savvy Internet users may find it hard to believe that people search for terms such as Amazon or CNN,” the report notes, “however, these navigational searches comprise a meaningful percentage of all searches and are often highly monetizable for Internet search engines.” The upshot is that mobile applications can completely bypass these types of queries, including mobile apps coming directly from e-commerce providers.

2. Disintermediation of Commercial Queries. “Product-related searches are traditionally among the most highly monetizable queries,” Broadpoint AmTech researchers note. They add that many emerging mobile apps exist solely for product queries, and ones that utilize technologies such as bar code reading can completely remove the search engine middle man from the product search process.

3. Placement on the Deck. “While virtually all smartphones provide open access to the Internet and high levels of customization for users, the importance for companies to secure prominent placement/default status on a phone’s mobile ‘deck’ remains important,” the report says. This phenomenon, of course, has gone on for years, and is part of why Google provides Mozilla nearly all of its annual revenues in exchange for a search box in the Firefox browser that feeds users directly into Google’s own search-and-ad ecosystem.

4. Convenience/Behavioral Risks. It’s becoming increasingly convenient for users to dive into mobile apps that either come from or are directly associated with large e-commerce sites, Broadpoint AmTech researchers note. “If users get in the habit of simply using the Amazon app to search for products or a Fandango app for movies, then Google would be seriously impacted,” the report concludes.

The Broadpoint AmTech research note makes a number of good points, but of all the large search engines, Google seems to be most aware of the possible threat that mobile applications represent to its traditional search business. In fact, the research note points out that Google’s own Nexus One phone could be an attempt to make “sure it can guide the development of the mobile web while protecting and expanding its own business model.” In other words, Google will want to put its own tools for directing users to its search ecosystem right on the desktop, and integrate it with the whole user experience.

Google already does that with Firefox, by buying search placement each year, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. This is also why Google is interested in the spread of Android-based phones, many of which emphasize its tools and applications, and steer users into its search/ad ecosystem. Broadpoint AmTech makes a good point about how mobile apps can have a material impact on search engine revenues, but one has to wonder if Microsoft and Yahoo are paying anywhere near as much attention to the issue as Google.