Google acquired the Motorola Mobility company and some manufacturers of Android terminals are now living with the fear that soon the company from Mountain View could apply the strategy of Apple and could use Android OS only in the terminals manufactured by Motorola. Big companies also have "friends" in powerful governments, such as the South Korean government the other day announced that it will invest in building an operating system for mobile terminals that will compete with those currently on the market.
South Korea will seek to develop a new, open-source operating system (OS) for mobile phones that will help secure local smartphone makers' future competitiveness against their global rivals such as Apple Inc., a government official said Monday. Kim Jae-hong, a deputy minister from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, said Google's takeover of Motorola, along with the approximately 17,000 mobile phone-related patents it will acquire, could provide short-term protection for South Korean companies using the open Android system against Apple's patent claims.
Who has the most to lose following the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google? Samsung, of course, and the Asian company put pressure on the Korean government, especially because Apple has several lawsuits open that could seriously affect its sales. Of course, the plans for the development of such an operating system cannot be put into practice right now, it will take several years until a relatively stable version will be available to the general public, and until then a lot can happen. What is interesting is the strategy of those from Samsung who now see themselves cornered by Apple and Google and are starting to ask for the help of the government to solve the situation.
Because Google is an open-source system, it cannot just switch over to a closed-source system overnight. Still, we cannot completely rule out the possibility of Google jumping into the smartphone business in the future.
