Ars reports that the Android-forked OPhone, blessed by the world’s largest wireless carrier, now competes head on with Google in the mobile space. How would this end?
Someone points out this is not the first time China creates an alternative to western-controlled technologies to avoid dependency on other countries and also licensing fees
China have repeatedly created alternatives to western tech, for no other reason then being in control. (S)VCD vs DVD, some chinese variant of wifi, and perhaps also a 3G alternative, iirc. those are just some examples that comes to mind at the moment.
However, it does not always end well:
Look at history. “Red Flag” Linux was supposed to be China’s “answer” to Red Hat (etc.) making beaucoup revenue in services. And they made significant early inroads.
BUT Chinese companies have historically been very reluctant to pay for external services, and Red Flag skimped on innovation, so they quickly fell behind, while other distros just kept coming with their Chinese-language offerings and support, and now Red Flag is limited to “guanxi sales” in the government sector, even though there is a booming Linux-on-the-desktop-and-in-the-server-room services market out there now being tapped by lotsa companies supporting lotsa distros.
The current “OPhone” hoopla reminds me very strongly of the early Red Flag hoopla. If I had a horse in the race, I would bet that the result will be the same. OPhone will make some early running, but will skimp on innovation, and their “fork” will rapidly become an app wasteland, as Google keeps clicking over significant improvements every time Android goes up dot release, and developers keep wanting to roll out the new hotness.