Panasonic: Open-source smartphones are the future

May 22, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

“The global market for smartphones based on open source platforms including Android will reach 100 million units in three years.” That’s the claim made by Panasonic’s director of mobile terminal business, Keisuke Ishii, at a press conference on Thursday.

A hundred million units is a lot. It’s comparable to today’s entire smartphone market. But Panasonic is, at least publicly, placing its bet on Android and other open-source platforms to replace today’s “feature phones” — industry jargon for dumbphones that aren’t smartphones — and to aggressively compete with other smartphones, mainly iPhones and BlackBerrys.

Despite Ishii’s boostery talk on Android, Panasonic didn’t actually introduce or pre-announce any open-source phones at the event. The only Android phone from a major Japanese carrier is NTT’s HT-03A, made by HTC. Ishii declined to specify when Panasonic would actually enter the market.

[Image by Rich Dellinger from richd.com]

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About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • HereAndNow
    The key objective, for mobile operators, should be to get EVERYONE on smartphones. Smartphones provide a platform that can be used to deliver an infinite number of value-added apps & services. Feature phones, while less expensive to produce, don't offer the same kind of revenue generating potential.

    Ways to reduce/eliminate the price difference between feature & smart phones:

    1. Heavy operator subsidies (recovered via app/service/data plan revenue).
    2. Fewer hardware features (eliminate mem slot, camera, GPS, accelerometer, compass, etc.).
    3. Lower cost components (resistive touchscreen?).
    4. Touchscreen buttons (except on/off), to reduce parts & assembly.
    5. Volume production (as volumes go up, component prices go down).
    6. Smartphone SOC (most/all smartphone electronics on a single chip).

    Combine this with a low cost entry-level data plan (achieved via slower data rates or limited usage) and virtually all barriers to 100% smartphone penetration are eliminated.