Doug's Mailbag: Android Upgrading Issues, Google or Office?

One reader has a fear about the future of Android-based phones:

Recently, there is a lot of discussion on tech Web sites about the good and the bad of Android compared to the iPhone.

Although it is good to have some alternatives to the iPhone, i've just realized that my worst fear just came back...

Do you remember in the past with Windows Mobile? You would have Windows Mobile 5, 6, 6.5... But what happened when a new version came out? Not everyone could update...

I remember I had a Palm Treo in Switzerland when Windows Mobile 6.5 came out... I couldn't update. The reason was that although U.S. customers could update, there was no license for the Italian version to upgrade.

My point: Are we going back to the same nightmare? If we buy an Android phone with version 2.0, do we risk that later on we cannot upgrade to version 3? Of course, theoretically we could -- but we would need to wait for the various manufacturers to release their own image.

In addition, every phone out there has its own screen resolution.

I now realize how easier it was with the iPhone. Even customers with the first generation iPhone could update to version 3 of the iPhone OS. And the best thing about that? Everyone could get the update at the same time! In addition, as a programmer, not having to deal with different screen resolutions is a plus.
-Dave

Here are some of your thoughts on the battle between Office and Google Apps:

I moved a small shop of five users to Google Apps from an Outlook 2000 e-mail client backed by cheap Web hosts POP and SMTP mail. A local Exchange server would have been overkill for them and not paid for itself for about three years.

They ended up upgrading Office (well, Outlook) to the 2007 version on top of paying for Google Apps because of Outlook's file attachment ease of use. So $50 a year per user for e-mail, plus $93 per user for Outlook. I tried to get them to share calendars and contacts, but do not think they have gotten that far yet.

So a small manufacturing company still needed both. We ended up with both anyways.
-Phil

I thought I needed 25 years' worth of features, but since I can no longer find those features due to this awful RIBBON, I've learned to live without them!
-Todd

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 02, 2010