When are techno-geeks going to get it into their heads that customers couldn’t care less about the difference between “Open” and “Closed” platforms? All the user cares about is “does it work?” And traditionally, Open platforms don’t work, unless you’re an über-nerd who likes troubleshooting your broken, incomprehensible system.
In the entire history of computing thus far, Open has never succeeded over Closed. Microsoft is a closed platform. Linux was its Open competitor. We all know how that turned out.
Also, people who cling to the naive belief that Android is Open are never going to get any respect from me. Google is as closed as Apple or Microsoft ever were. If you don’t believe me, just ask them to release their search algorithms or their Ad technology. Android is worse than a traditional closed system, because it lures you with the illusion of being open. But at the end of the day, Google will clamp down on developers just as hard as anyone else if their core business is threatened, or if they think it will benefit them.
Take, for instance, the recent embracing of Adobe Flash. Rather than continuing to help Apple promote the Open, standards-based HTML 5, Google jumped at the opportunity to screw HTML 5 developers by allowing the very Closed Flash plugin on Android devices. Why? So it could maybe hope to grab a few sales away from Apple.
The problem with the Open software movement is that it has never figured out a way to make money. And money drives everything in technology. I’m not blaming Google for not being open, or not always promoting Open technologies. After all, they are a company. They need to make money.
