Buzz Word Alert: Fragmentation

For those of us active in the mobile applications sector, we are now being repeatedly bombarded with a new term: fragmentation. As with any new term, and especially one with a "legacy" definition, there is confusion on just what it means. Let's look at its most popular meanings with respect to mobile phones:

• Platform OS: Many commentators say that the diversity of mobile phone operating systems (OS) is fragmenting the market. Assuming that fragmentation is bad (for this particular use of the term), there is an argument which platform will eventually win -- iPhone, Android, WebOS, etc. -- and therefore end the fragmentation.
• Device Vendor OS Variants: Manufacturers that license the OS from another company often are able to customize the platform with their own user interface and functional components. Of course you can't do this with iPhone and Blackberry since they keep their platforms for their devices, but it is getting very popular with Android. This type of fragmentation is supposedly bad since it may confuse users and increase app developer angst, and will occasionally require additional work by app developers.
• OS Versions: Not all devices run the same version of the platform OS at the same point in time. This is especially true with Android since new platform versions must be integrated by each device vendor with their hardware-specific drivers and their unique functional components. This type of fragmentation is not new, but Android is making it more visible than it has been in the past. For example, various Symbian versions have coexisted in the market, especially since whatever version was built into the device was there for the lifetime of the device.

Apart from the confusion over its meaning, is fragmentation really a bad thing? I believe that if you look at these definitions more closely you'll find that fragmentation is merely an unfortunate synonym for a well-known phenomenon: competition. In other words, fragmentation's entry into our lexicon is entirely superfluous and therefore unwelcome.

Multiple OS's in the market? That's competition. Multiple variants of licensed OS's by device vendors? That, too, is competition. It is even necessary if device vendors want to differentiate their products when their competitors have access to the same core technology -- both hardware and software. Multiple OS versions in the market? Ok, that isn't competition, but it's a business challenge that is not materially different from other examples in the software business, such as the many versions of Microsoft Windows.

I could suggest that we drop this use of fragmentation from our vocabulary, but no one will listen to me. Commentators like new buzz words since it gives them something to say to people who are vaguely aware that something potentially bad, or at least controversial, is going on in the mobile sector. With luck it's only a fad that will fade before too many more months have passed.

My only prediction is that, over time, competition will drive fragmentation problems out of the market, by forcing solution or by product extinctions. As in the PC world, it is also highly unlikely there will be a winner-take-all OS; some will, of course, pass into history. Competition -- not fragmentation -- does that.