Future Managed Services Direction: Google Android
Even as Kaseya strives to enhance its Apple iPhone support, Kaseya President Mark Sutherland is keeping an eye on another emerging mobile platform: Google Android. Sutherland mentioned Android for five seconds or less during a Kaseya Connect User Conference session this morning. But those five seconds could preview where mobile managed services are heading next.
Android is an open source operating system that seems to be moving in multiple directions. On the one hand, Google is promoting Android to handset and smart phone makers. But on the other, Android is leaping to some netbooks (sub-notebooks) and other types of mobile PC devices. And companies like Canonical are striving to make the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution run Android applications.
Why is Kaseya interested in potentially supporting Android? The answer is simple: Analysts estimate that Google Android’s installed base is roughly 1 million to 2 million mobile devices, with sales expected to grow more than 900 percent this year.
Sutherland didn’t promise Kaseya would support Android. But his decision to mention Android on stage — in front of 400 MSPs and corporate IT managers — shows he’s taking a close look at the Google technology, and its implications for the managed services market.
In the meantime, Kaseya is talking up its iPhone strategy here at the user conference. I will report back later today (May 27) and May 28 with more details.
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Joe,
I think the reason for mentioning Android was that Android will support multiple threads while iPod (currently) only supports the active one. Thus unless your phone is constantly in “Kaseya” mode, you won’t know what’s happening.
It will also be interesting to see what happens after June 6, when the Palm Pre, based upon the WebOS and fully multi-threaded, will be out.
As you can see on http://www.sprint.com/palmpre – one of its primary claims to fame will be the ability to update multiple apps simultaneously.
Perhaps there’s a new website in store — “MobileMSPMentor” 🙂
Great coverage of the Kaseya event.
Rich Forsen
VirtualAdministrator.com
Hey Rich: Thanks for your perspective. I read some coverage in recent days suggesting more than 20 different Google Android-based smart phones are on the way, plus a few netbooks… …
Not too sure if Palm’s predicted recovery (by some pundits) is real. Would love readers’ perspectives on that.