Sony Ericsson Head Android Developer Tweets - 'in favor of rooting if we do it right'

[Xf53vfs3]

I'm a pretty hardcore Linux user myself and there's many applications where it fits in the corporate environment. But I've also been in corporate IT long enough to understand the Linux will always be objective and never nab the entire desktop marketshare. I honestly believe at some point (just to stay on topic) that Android will replace iOS and RIM in the corporate smartphone market. But most businesses aren't willing to take the risks that come with pushing an Open Source OS into a mission-critical environment. As for me, Imma dual-boot Linux tell I die yo.

thats a good point, big time companies will most likely refrain from putting much money and time behind open source operating systems for one main reason (in my opinion): profit.

its no lie that it is harder, although far from impossible, to make money from open source operating systems when their closed source counterparts like Windows and OS X, or IOS and Windows Mobile are equal or better in terms of end user experience as well as *more disciplined* in their advances.

 

[UltraDroid]

I think they would increase their market-share exponentially, especially if they released a custom ROM SDK or the like.

I agree and disagree. People who flash roms are probably less than 1% of the market, which is only 900k globally (assuming 90M Android sales this year). That's nothing to sneeze at, but at least a few phones are/will be open and even then there's no guarantee of capturing all or even most of that 900k, so the incentive simply isn't there.

However, I would agree a savvy company might embrace the rom community and work with developers a bit more closely and they could really up customer service/satisfaction while reducing maintenance costs by pushing some of that off on developers. You make it a very seamless and easy process to flash roms (read: like installing any app from the market) and then you maybe have a strong selling point.

On the other hand, with Google planning to slow down updates to 2 a year it becomes less critical. But I still think it would be in the OEM's interest to take VZW out of the loop, which only serves to add another layer of complexity to the update process.

Root adds some value, and most of these phones can be and are rooted. But to be honest, I don't see a lot of value-add from custom roms, beyond getting the latest version of Android and propping up the underpowered D1 (which is mostly a non-issue with what news phones have under the hood).

The principle value to rooting is that it frees the phone from being dependent on Verizon or the phone manufacturer for updates that enhance the features of the phone. All three of my android phones are rooted, and two of them have Gingerbread (Android 2.3.2) installed. The Gingerbread is courtesy of custom roms, and it runs just fine on my D1 and Droid Incredible. So I've got the best features of the yet to be released update right NOW. When they finally *do* get around to the official OTA release, I'll block it (rather, CWRecovery will do the blocking), because I don't need it - "Been there/Done that".

In a word, think FREEDOM, when you wonder about rooting.

-Mike

 

[kodiak799]

The principle value to rooting is that it frees the phone from being dependent on Verizon or the phone manufacturer for updates that enhance the features of the phone.

Not root, which almost every phone to come out has been rooted. You are talking about an unlocked bootloader. I don't disagree that it's nice not to have to worry about updates, but the process, simple as it may be ultimately, is far from ready for the masses.

 

[GodfatherIP]

I love hearing stuff like this from the manufacturers. It shows that the rooters may not be as small a group as we think and that even if manufacturers aren't coming around yet at least we have made enough noise that they are addressing the issue. I think that Motorola Youtube PR blunder caused enough of a ruckus that some manufacturers are taking a serious look at the potential gains from opening up at least some of their devices for the modding community. Plus they want to keep us tech people happy so we will tell the ignorant masses to buy their products. I've got my eye on that Xperia play phone so hopefully it will be one that Sony designs to allow the modders to play.
Hurray for manufacturers not going out of their way to screw us over!