Google’s Jelly Bean Creates More Competition

An operating system is often the make or break technology that affects whether a smartphone, tablet, labtop, or desktop is competitive in the market. Microsoft’s Windows 1995 standardized the labtop and desktop industry creating a staple for hardware companies to design their computers around. Windows dominated the desktop and labtop market for years, with little or no competition from other companies until Apple began to fight its way back into the scene in the late 90s and early 2000′s. Their control of both hardware and software propelled Apple into building a more user friendly and less virus infected operating system, combined with well designed hardware. This changed the information technology sector forever.
As a college freshman, Apple’s Mac Os and macbooks dominated the libraries. The user friendly and long lasting design of Apples new macbooks and Macbook’s pros built a reputation for quality versus the cheaper and less dependable windows personal computers. Although windows still dominates the overall percentage of internet users with some estimates as high as 80 percent, apple is gaining ground steadily as it continues to launch high quality products that internet junkies covet. Windows dominates the market because its computers are cheaper, but Apple’s sales are still growing despite their high cost compared to cheaper windows pcs.
It is about time a new company came onto the operating scene, because linux, practically non existence in main stream use, makes Windows and Apple essentially a duopoly in one of the fastest growing industries in the world, computer hardware. That company is Google. With its launch of android smartphone operating system, it is now head to head with Apple gaining market share at an astounding rate. Apple’s iphone still dominates the market however android has a strong chance to beat out the iphone because so many different phone companies build phones with the android operating system.
Additionally, androids operating system is gaining ground on the ipad, as cheaper tablet computer makers use the operating system. If more high quality hardware companies can build tablets with the android operating system they will continue to tap into the market share Apple still dominates. Tablets are also an incredibly booming industry in a worldwide economy saddled by debt and stagflation. If android can garner more support from tablet users it may propel Google into operating dominance alongside Apple and Windows.
One of my good friends from college visited me this fourth of July, and she just happens to work at Google. Of course she has the new android operating system Jelly Bean on her phone so that she can test out bugs and make sure it works properly. There were many upsides to the new operating system from what I could tell, but at the same time there were bugs and quirks that needed to be fixed. If android can deliver the user friendly abilities that Mac OS provides than it has a chance to overtake Apple as the largest mobile operating system provider. This has unprecedented ramifications. If Google is able to dominate the operating system market for mobile and the internet industry with search, this gives it unprecedented dominance in perhaps the fastest growing industry in the world; information technology.
That leaves Google with one last piece of technology that it must develop to emerge onto hardware scene as a dominant force. That is Google’s Chrome OS. If Google can pull off a strong Jelly Bean roll out and a consistently improving Chrome operating system, then Google has the potential to not only produce phones (Motorola), operating systems for both personal computers and mobile devices (phones and tablets) but dominates online marketing with Google search and chrome browsing. This is both good and bad, because the dominance of such a company is almost scary, as it has the power to influence the entire world. Not to mention the fact that much of their data and information about internet activity is stored within the databases.
Regardless of the scary implications of what such dominance could produce, there is no doubt that what Google, and what Jelly Bean could offer is amazing. Google is not even a fifteen year old company, yet it is perhaps the most useful and important company in the world. Everyone uses Google search, and now more and more people are going to use Android OS and Chromo OS for smartphones, labtops, desktops, and tablets. This is a good thing, because it only means that Apple and Windows have more work to do to stay competitive in the industry, so that every product they make is up to standard. America was built on competition and strong government foundation to fill in the gaps where the free market fails, and competition in the operating system industry is great for innovation.