Android, Developing World Domination?

Singularity Hub is running an interesting article that looks at the popularity of an $80 Android phone in Africa:

It seems like just yesterday when only the slickest kid on the block had a smartphone, but now, this revolutionary gadget is selling like hotcakes in the developing world. Earlier this year, the Chinese firm Huawei unveiled IDEOS through Kenya’s telecom titan, Safaricom. So far, this $80 smartphone has found its way into the hands of 350,000+ Kenyans, an impressive sales number in a country where 40% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. The IDEOS’s success in this market firmly establishes the open source Android as the smartphone of the people and demonstrates how unrelenting upswings in price-performance can jumpstart the spread of liberating technologies. Thanks to low-cost Androids, the geographically-untethered smartphone is here to stay, and it simply cannot be stopped.

The article goes on to explain how IDEOS was able to put together a cheap smartphone.

However, for us the key point to understand is that smartphones are likely the biggest trend in consumer electronics, and Android is poised to dominate the market. In the 80s and 90s PCs dominated the desktop computer market by giving hardware manufactures the freedom to inovate and compete. We are seeing the same thing in the smartphone market with Android. Apple and RIM develop their own software and the hardware, where with Android Google develops the software and any hardware manufacturer can build the device. Android is using the same business model to take over the smartphone market that Microsoft used to take over the hardware market.

Speaking of Microsoft, where do they fit into the smartphone race? Microsoft is late out of the gates with their Windows phone. Although, Microsoft's software good and innovative they have failed to capture significant market share. This could change in 2012 when Nokia, who has a major presence on European smartphone market begins to market Windows phones. Add to this the possibility of Microsoft taking over RIM, who has a strong presence in the North American market and I think we have an Android Microsoft race.

Both companies and both phones use similar, proven models, and I expect to see one of the dominate the market.