There is nothing Google can do about it. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Everything they try will simply make the problem worse.
- Release new versions faster? Nope. More fragmentation.
- Pressure MOs/OEMs to only ship latest versions? Nope. Just pisses them off and makes them more inclined to fork.
- Reduce flexiblilty (better abstraction layers for hardware) ala WP7? Nope. MOs/OEMs care most about flexibility which got them on Android to begin with. They'll just fork.
- Do something really innovative. Maybe, but it would have to be mind-blowingly-differentiated. Can't find any proof points of Google doing that in the past, so have to assume it won't happen in the future.
Android is alive and well. It is an extremely healthy ecosystem. But it is no longer Google's ecosystem. And it will continue to fragment no matter what Google tries.
FWIW, I wrote about this in depth earlier this year in a post titled "Fragmentation is not the End of Android" here:
>Maybe, but it would have to be mind-blowingly-differentiated. Can't find any proof points of Google doing that in the past, so have to assume it won't happen in the future.
Right, because Android itself doesn't meet that exact specification? A completely free operating system that is enormously huge on hundreds (thousands yet?) of different devices that anyone can build and distribute without royalties? It literally changed how smart phones exist and has put them in the hands of people that would never otherwise own a smartphone.
If you want revolutionary, check out boot to gecko. Even cheaper phones, more transparency, all open standards.
- Release new versions faster? Nope. More fragmentation.
- Pressure MOs/OEMs to only ship latest versions? Nope. Just pisses them off and makes them more inclined to fork.
- Reduce flexiblilty (better abstraction layers for hardware) ala WP7? Nope. MOs/OEMs care most about flexibility which got them on Android to begin with. They'll just fork.
- Do something really innovative. Maybe, but it would have to be mind-blowingly-differentiated. Can't find any proof points of Google doing that in the past, so have to assume it won't happen in the future.
Android is alive and well. It is an extremely healthy ecosystem. But it is no longer Google's ecosystem. And it will continue to fragment no matter what Google tries.
FWIW, I wrote about this in depth earlier this year in a post titled "Fragmentation is not the End of Android" here:
http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/01/14/fragmentation-is-not-the...