Talk:Open Handset Alliance

Organization of the article: Products section

Can we perhaps begin a bit of a discussion on the Talk page about article organization?

The article is a good start on a new open product alliance, but I believe the product section should be better organized. Android is NOT the only product of the alliance, as several editors have noted. It is clear from the History section that many companies have gotten into the act by signing on with the OHA. In my view, each of these companies will, ostensibly, be introducing products over the next six to twelve months. The question is how to organize the products section. The current "Products" section is organized such that it appears Android may be the only product. Attempts to add additional subsections for non-Android offerings have, to date, generally been deleted by other well-intentioned editors. So my proposal is to kick ideas for potential organization around on the Talk page and see if we can't get a consensus. What do you say?

Proposal A -- My first idea is to subdivide the Products section into some subsections that we could build the article on over time:

• proposal A1 -- subsections for "Hardware component products" and "Software component products," "Mobile Network-provider products" and "End-user products." End-user products would include both retail handsets (combining chips and basic software) as well as specific end-user software add-ons that are not network specific. Mobile Network-provider products would include specific OHA-compliant offerings of data services (bandwidth, network extent, reliability, aggregate data loads, etc.).
• proposal A2 -- subsections for "End-user products" and "Component products". End-user section would be handsets and multi-vendor multi-network add-on software while semiconductor chips, 'raw' handsets wholesaled by the manufacturers, etc. Perhaps network services would need to be a separate section as they would not fit in as a complete offering, nor would they be what we normally think of as components. In this typology, a Motorola handset would be a component if offered, as today, only through other companies to be sold for a specific network with specific, but would be an end-user product if offered directly to consumers for consumers to use generically, much as Dell computers are sold today.

Many variations are possible. But Android alone is not it. Android is just one of myriad product offerings that will make the emergent Open Handset Alliance become over time. What are your ideas? N2e 16:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't yet know what these other products are, and therefore can't suggest an appropriate structure. Could someone more knowledgeable please first add information about some of these anticipated products into the article (with cites, of course) under an "Other products" heading, without necessarily creating a coherent structure first, and then we can restructure the information into a coherent framework afterwards? -- The Anome 14:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Quick thought - another possibility is to include one section for embeddable systems (hardware and software) and one section for retail products. Mindmatrix 22:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

OHA is expanding but the wiki article shouldn't look like a commercial catalog of OHA applications and hardware.Chmyr (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, that would be unencyclopedic. But Android is one of many compliant products that will be released in the next year, and clearly the "Product" section should expand somewhat as the new products come out. Thus the discussion on organization here on the Talk page. N2e (talk) 02:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Organization of Membership Table

After the two large groups joined, the individual joins seem to be rather less important. How about grouping them by year of joining? That will also make it easier to see the trends of membership. Shanen (talk) 08:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Verizon Wireless

Verizon has joined the Open Handset Alliance. Just do a search with Verizon Wireless and Android in the news section of Google and it will bring up stories about it. Since I don't know how to do really good edits to Wikipedia, someone else has to do it. Here is the first search result: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=22454 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajbhai87 (talk • contribs) 23:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You should read your sources. They like the idea of Android as a product. They have not joined the OHA. Roguegeek (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Asus

Google has invited Asus to join the Open Handset Alliance, via this link. --68.81.70.65 (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

OHA Membership - currently 47 or 48?

The navibox, and the Android (operating system) page, lists 48 members of the OHA, but a recent (anon) update to the lede has noted that the OHA homepage only lists 47 currently. So, has someone dropped out? (If so who, when, and why isn't this mentioned here?) Since it is (relatively) widely reported that the initial membership was 34 companies, and that subsequently another 14 members joined, the maths isn't very hard! A quick scan of the members listed on the OHA site suggests there are indeed 47 members, but I haven't had time to correlate their list to the contents of the article.

On a related note, since the membership will inevitably change over time, is it really wise to record the membership numbers on other pages? (Only looked on Android, so far, but would be surprised if not duplicated elsewhere too.)

Hymek (talk) 12:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Advantages/disadvantages?

Can a company put Android on their phones if they're not member of the OHA? If so, what are the advantages of joining? AxelBoldt (talk) 21:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

So the default apps that are part of the AOSP aren't maintained anymore. Instead Google has made proprietary apps that are the (de facto) standard apps for Android. And because they're proprietary, you need licence to ship your device with these apps, there’s a (again de facto) requirement to join the OHA. This is the leverage that Google uses to prevent Android from having multiple major distros, like Linux.Crioca (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

What is a "Commercialisation company"

What does the column "Commercialisation companies" mean? The only company i recognize in there is wind river and they are very much a software company. CombatWombat42 (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Website is stagnat for over 10 years is it dead?

No new news on the website. Last new member joined back in 2011. The companies listed as members like Sony Ericsson (disbanded) and Sprint (acquired and retired name) and are no longer here. Is the OHA dead? CaribDigita (talk) CaribDigita (talk) 02:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I have been trying to find updated info since I first saw this article a few months ago. I think for the most part it's dead. The OHA always seemed to be an incentive for Google to get companies involved with Android when it was a new market. The OS has matured since then and they have a streamlined OEM license. – The Grid (talk) 15:41, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Should we switch to using “was” in the lead sentence? No one will announce as news that the OHA is dead, but keeping the article in a state that implies otherwise is unhelpful. Perhaps we can find some source that refers to it as inactive. –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 00:31, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Change "is" to "was"

The alliance is pretty obviously dead, it was a collaborative effort to get Android out the door but it's pretty obvious it's dead. The webpage is probably maintained for security purposes. VictCoca (talk) 02:50, 22 November 2024 (UTC)