Tim Wu had a great analysis in Slate.com recently about Google's new Open Handset Alliance and how they're locked in a potentially zero-sum tussle with the vestiges of Ma Bell in the form of AT&T and Verizon. But before reading the excerpt below, have a look at the video explaining what Android is all about.

Here's the excerpt:

In Google's words, its recently unveiled "Android" is the "first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices." But it is a signal of much more. Google is as much an ideology as a firm and can resemble a nation-state in its pursuit of power rather than a mere corporation chasing quarterly numbers. Google and its allies are now trying to make the principles of openness—the commanding ideology of the Internet—the conquering principle of the wireless world, and the Android announcement is just the first step.

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Last week Google's CEO Eric Schmidt wrote to the Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC saying that they would bid a minimum of $4.6 billion if certain open platform conditions were included in the auction award.

But there are a couple of billion other reasons why Google prefers the 700 MHz spectrum.

The 700 MHz mobile network would be inexpensive to build compared to any other alternatives - GigaOM says:

"...The spectrum, currently owned by broadcasters, has been used for analog television. But it is set to be turned over to the government in 2009. Due to its broadcast-attractive physics (like its ability to penetrate walls), this spectrum is desirable for both broadband communications in general and public-safety uses in particular.

Also, a 700 MHz mobile network would be relatively inexpensive to build compared to the alternatives:

"...According to some estimates, the cost of building a nationwide wireless network over the 700 MHz spectrum is around $2 billion versus a nationwide 1900MHz PCS that costs approximately $4 Billion. The costs are lower in rural areas, due to less interference issues and wide-open spaces. That's because each tower broadcasting at 700MHz covers twice as many square miles. Some estimates say that a single 700 MHz tower can cover 20-miles. (#)(read more)

Microsoft's Live Search was the only search provider to gain market share in June, but still trails Google and Yahoo!, with less than a fifth of Google's share. However, according to Microsoft numbers, 60% of Internet searchers use multiple search engines, and 30% of searchers use Live Search from time to time.

Live Search has gained new users by finding new ways to penetrate the Web search market, which strategically positions Google and Yahoo! on the defensivean unusual posture these days for the pioneering Google. Making Live Search a household name by spreading it across the Internet in different channels is the foundation for creating a loyal user base.

Microsoft's senior VP Satya Nadella acknowledged that they were not there in the beginning of this Web search story, we missed it, but we are getting back into the game in a major way. By not being one of the first movers, brand recognition was stunted, but the following excerpt from Intelligent Enterprise analyzes the actions Microsoft is using to intrude the Web search market.

Live Search gaining search share at the expense of Yahoo and Google in June. A recent promotion called Live Search Club that rewards users with ringtones, t-shirts and copies of Windows Vista may have helped bolster Live Search, but one month does not a watershed make.(read more)

Google's deal with Postini is a useful lens through which to see where Google plans to go in the future. Large enterprise customers have always been concerned about incorporating Google Apps because of security issues, but now that Google has begun addressing this problem by acquiring Postini, an e-mail filtering company that developed compliance technology that enforces a company's communications policies, Google has attended to some of these concerns as they take Google Apps to the big business market.

A great place for Google to start is Postini's current customer base of 35,000 customers and 10 million users. "Basically this is [Google] throwing the gauntlet down to Microsoft and saying 'we intend to compete with you in your core market,'" said Shar Van-Boskirk, an analyst with Forrester Research. "And if that's the case we will see Google compete with Microsoft's broader set of back office applications."

Google's Apps like Gmail, Docs and Spreadsheets provide a collaborative work environment that Microsoft currently provides in Exchange, SharePoint and Office for a much larger price. But the thought of risking confidential information in the hands of an external service provider like Google isn't a risk many businesspeople are willing to take. Most large business IT directors still believe that, no matter how secure they say their system is, outsourcing it to a third party opens their data up to to a security compromise.(read more)

Spinning the absence of a software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone, Jobs suggested that AJAX and other open standards UI programming principles for the Web would allow developers to create content that looks and behaves exactly like apps and would further mean users and developers alike wouldn't have to compromise on security, reliability or, for that matter, the ecosystem strategy Apple is grafting onto the iPhone from its hegemonic iTunes/iPod franchise.

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Worldviews matter a lot - maybe more than anything else - when it comes to competitive strategy. This was highlighted last week as Viacom launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and Google claiming $1 billion in damages from the 150,000 clips of their content (in particular, the vast library of MTV programming) that has been collectively viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Viacom claims that, although YouTube does remove such material if asked, the Google-owned company deliberately puts the burden on the copyright holder, and makes it unreasonably difficult for copyrighted works to be removed. This has led to the fantastic gains in traffic, trending momentum that amounted to a valuation in Google's acquisition of YouTube of $1.65 billion when the companies merged a few months ago despite YouTube's "immaterial" contribution to Google's revenue mix.(read more)

Well, as my first conference on Prediction Markets this one left me a little puzzled, even with James Suroweicki and Robin Hanson there in person. So here are my thoughts, questions, and reactions to what was presented, talked about, questions asked and examples thrown out to us.

What seemed a way to learn about the concept and applications, successes and failures, ended up being a way for Google, Yahoo and other vendors to tout a process they just happened to have new tools for. The 4 hours seemed to be for the "true believers", and really glossed over PM 101, even though presentations by both Surowiecki and Hanson were meant to address the basics of the concept.

Reps from Microsoft and HP really had the most valuable lesson for me - they have been testing prediction markets in various forms and for various business functions, but neither are using them to make real business decisions at the group, department, business unit or corporate level. Yes, the markets can be very accurate, more so in many cases than internal and external "experts" (PM's are cheaper, too!), but no, they aren't taking over from the more entrenched ways of forecasting and decision making.

I heard a lot about how to get people to trade in the market, pros and cons of real money vs. other forms of "payoffs" (social standing and reputations), how to address the issues of risk attitudes and "quality" of trading over time (people getting it right, or close to it).

One really useful set of thoughts came from Adam Siegal of Inklingmarkets.com - lessons learned as to why PM's will fail within any group:

1. No concept of what a PM is
2. Using software that is too complex and not easy to use, to set up, trade in and run a market
3. Market structure was wrong
4. Asking for an opinion - questions must be quantifiable, even if just yes or no
5. Description or rules of the market not clear/understood by the trading populous
6. Questions posed are biased
7. Time frame of the market is too long - apathy over time and the market becomes static
8. No information is available for the traders to make a reasonable judgement - trades are based on information and knowledge (duh!)

Now this last one really struck me - I thought the whole idea in a PM was to bring out hidden tacit knowledge in an organization in a way to focus it on an issue or challenge to meet a specific business need. It would seem that there is a issue here of simply bad selections of the trading group members. I would also say there is a real issue on selected traders vs. self selected traders?(read more)