Why Android Could Be Headed for the Laundry Room

After a slow start, Google says its Android operating system will appear in as many as 20 cellphones by the end of this year.


It is also destined over the next few years to become a major player in all sorts of other smart devices, including digital washing machines. That has been the clear view of several top executives I’ve talked to recently who are making chips for all manner of electronics.

The most enthusiastic for Android was Sehat Sutardja, the chief executive of the Marvell Technology Group, which makes processor chips for phones as well as other gadgets, including a new $99 computer the size of a cellphone charger.

He argued the world needed a standard, free operating system for all the devices that increasingly have powerful computers inside.

Google appears to be committed to using its resources and prestige to make sure that Android continues to grow. At the same time, Google doesn’t need to charge money for its contribution. Rather, it appears to believe its effort is worthwhile because it will help expand the universe of Internet-connected devices that can be used to connect to Google services. Oh yes, Android also helps destabilize Microsoft, Google’s biggest rival.

The case for Android is that it combines the benefit of open-source software with the benefits of a product of a big, reliable company. By being open, there are potentially many thousands of developers who can contribute code, solving little problems, often for little compensation.

“Open source is great because you have the smartest people in the world working simply because of principle,” Mr. Sutardja said.

There is an argument to be made that the same forces that helped build Microsoft are now aligned behind Android. Microsoft made some good products, was a tough and savvy competitor and benefited disproportionally from its first deal to make the operating system for I.B.M.’s personal computer. But the main reason that Windows become the dominant operating system and Office became the dominant productivity software is that the market wants a standard and will settle on the most plausible alternative.

When it comes to phones and other devices, Microsoft has lost its presumptive argument for being the most plausible choice. Despite a head start with Windows CE and Windows Mobile, it doesn’t have the hearts and minds of the engineers and business executives making decisions about what product to use.

Moreover, its business model simply can’t make operating systems that are free. Google is in what the Pentagon calls an asymmetric war. It wins simply by undercutting Microsoft’s prices. Microsoft essentially can’t offer products that cost less than Google’s already free search and other ad-supported products.

Right now, all this has many big executives making excuses for the bugs and limitations in the current versions of Android.

“Android has problems, bugs and all,” said Eli Harari, chief executive of SanDisk. “But there is so much energy going into Android.” That makes him argue that the operating system will be an important rival to those offered by Apple, Microsoft, Palm and others.

Mr. Sutardja was even more enthusiastic arguing that Android will become much better over the next five years.

“It will become pervasive,” he said. “It will be used in everything from TVs to I.P. phones to digital picture frames to washing machines.”

Washing machines, I asked?

“Why not?” he replied. A washing machine may well be better with a user interface that shows pictures of various types of clothing and stains, he said. In any case, the machines will have microprocessors and graphical interfaces. An appliance company isn’t going to write its own operating system, and a free version of Android will fill the bill.

“A lot of our customers are people who cannot afford to develop their own software,” Mr. Sutardja said. “Android practically is the only option for them.”

Mathew Growney, the chief executive of Isabella Products, a start-up making Internet-enabled digital picture frames, says that for now Android uses too much processing power and simpler versions of Linux are better for simple products.

So I don’t want to say that Android has the market locked up, at this early stage. But there does seem to be a great demand for something very much like Android in any case.

As for smartphones, however, you’ve got to wonder whether the market dynamics are a bit different. For a picture frame or washing machine, everybody is served by an operating system that is good enough and cheap. But isn’t the standard higher for your phone, which you carry with you all day and need to be powerful, responsive and easy at a moment’s notice? Isn’t that where Apple, Research in Motion, Palm and maybe even Microsoft can compete against the free, open source world?

Mr. Sutardja of Marvell agreed that the Apple model will continue to thrive. But the market is so big, he argued, that there needs to be a standard operating system for the companies that make handsets but don’t have the ability to make phone software.

“There could be two billion smartphones,” he said. “The proprietary operating systems could have one billion phones. That means half of the phones will be open source.”