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Yahoo's Blueprint: Competitor And Ally For Google's Android
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Mobile phones are going to rule the post-PC era, and companies are betting on the most disruptive platform, the latest being Yahoo!'s Blueprint which enables developers to create widgets for mobile devices.
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Thursday, June 19, 2008:
"Developing applications for mobile is challenging. There are thousands of different devices, umpteen platforms plus the complexity of different screen sizes, etc. What developers need is a platform that can remove the headache of dealing with all these complexities and instead allow them to focus on their application (or a Web service)." Now that's a quote that reminded me of a Google press conference where the search giant had announced its Android project, but it's actually an extract of a statement made by Adam Taggart, director, product marketing, Yahoo! Mobile, at CommunicAsia, while explaining why Yahoo! felt the need for the 'Blueprint'.
So, is the Blueprint same as Google's Android? Yes -- when it comes to tackling the challenge of handling complexities involved in developing software for mobile devices. And no -- for pretty much everything else.
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The biggest difference between the two lies in the fact that Android is designed to run on mobile devices that run Android only, at least initially. Blueprint, on the other hand, was driven by the 'open' strategy wherein an application created by a developer would run on any mobile device independent of its operating system. "So, applications created on the Blueprint will run on mobiles running Symbian, Windows, Java, Linux or even Android!" explains Adam.
Widgets -- that's what developers will typically create using Blueprint. Technically, Widgets are focussed applications that perform a dedicated function, such as update you on the current temperature in your city or fetch new from a designated media website.
"Quite a few widgets have been created by developers at Yahoo India," adds Manish Dalal, senior director, broadband and mobile products, Yahoo! India. The widgets for cricket scores and India movies mentioned in our press release are amongst few of them. Overall, between 50-plus widgets have already been developed by Yahoo's team world-wide, and many more are expected to be released soon. And that's where Yahoo officials believe the community will play an important role.
Since the entire Blueprint platform is based on open standards like XML, and the entire development kit and guidelines are available for free access at http://mobile.yahoo.com/developers, anyone can develop Web services (or shall I say -- mobile services) using Blueprint, and their creation will instantly be able to run on most of Web-enabled mobile phones. To understand fully, how a Blueprint widget fits into Yahoo's overall strategy, take a look at this news item: Yahoo! Announces New Mobile Initiatives For Asia Pacific.
So, when did Yahoo release Blueprint? Strictly speaking they haven't released it yet. The current release in is the 0.x version. Its '1.0' release is expected in the third quarter of 2008. But, for developers who like to stay ahead of the curve, it surely promises to be a cool platform to check out.
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