Android Aids Dynamic Working

Humans are creatures of habit, yet we look constantly for change. Many will say that they don’t like change yet give them something that makes their life easier and it is readily accepted. Humans are most comfortable with what they know yet have a thirst for trying out new things. It is the inquisitive nature within us and the need to make life easier that has driven our technical revolutions. The constant change in Information Technology drives business leaders crazy yet can lead to more efficiency and opportunities, this translates into more profit and new markets. IT began as a centralised service then became decentralised with computing power on every desk. Now it is mobilizing as flexibility becomes the norm. Companies come and go with each new advance and decline, long lasting successful companies adapt to change and embrace it. Big ideas survive and flourish and adapt to new trends.

At the heart of all IT is the operating system which runs computers, providing them services. The market has many operating systems available, though most computer users will be familiar with Windows. The move to mobile computing began with the laptop computer but has moved on to the mobile phone. The latest mobiles phones are as powerful as a laptop and more powerful than computers from not that long ago. The mobile phone is a consolidation device. It has evolved to incorporate music players, cameras, notepads, GPS systems, browsers and email readers, as well as many other uses. This consolidation has resulted in the term smartphone being used. The dominant smartphone was the Apple iPhone. Apple was not the first producer of a smartphone, nor the only choice, but the iPhone is considered the product against which others are compared.

With smartphones becoming so important to mobile working the choice of operating system can impact the cost of deploying mobile systems. Phones as products come with the operating system built in and the licence cost of the operating system covered through the handset cost, be that a licence for iOs (Apple) or Windows Mobile (Microsoft). There used to be more choice with Symbian (Nokia) or Blackberry (RIM) but market forces ended that. The Android (Google) mobile phone operating system doesn't have a operating system licence fee though manufacturers still need to recover the costs involved in adapting Android to their latest hardware.

The big costs in deploying mobile systems are when you need facilities that do not come straight out the box. All smartphones can provide email, browsers and other common functionality, but when you need to run custom software and perform specialised tasks many companies fall back upon laptop based solutions. This is because mobile phone operating systems are often ring fenced and do not supply enough information on getting applications to run effectively. Also trying to run browser based solutions on a mobile phone cannot always provide the required functionality or guaranteed reliability. Yet this need not be the case. The problems associated with using closed source mobile phone operating systems can be overcome by using Android based devices. Especially now that the development of cheap tablet computers has provided more choice when designing IT solutions. An Android based phone or tablet solution can reduce the overall costs of deploying mobile solutions and make the management of those solutions easier. Android is open source, with good development tools, good support, cheap hardware and no deployment licences.

Android is built from the ground up for mobility, unlike laptop based solutions, which at their heart are desktop computers on the move. Often laptops are Windows based, and Windows was never built for mobility from the outset. Android brings a fresh perspective to developing IT solutions and often makes the design choices easier. Tek Eye will be bring your articles on solutions using Android, useful for businesses looking to deploy mobile systems. As businesses need to embrace a more flexible and dynamic work place our articles will be helpful to those looking to deploy Android based systems.