The Mobile OS landscape is in flux. But the question is who will be the winners going forward. My guess is that the older operating systems will just not provide the experience that user will grow to prefer. They will still have their niches, but they will be squeezed out of new applications.

The two newest operating systems are the Apple iPhone and the Google Android. Google has had a slow start out of the gate than Apple, but the software will appeal more to developers and possibly users as Google uses its knowledge and money to port the Google applications to the Android platform.

Apple strength is that it keeps tight control over its platform and its applications. That is also its potential weakness. This rigid platform provided users who were unfamiliar with the mobile web and mobile devices in general a pretty and safe place to learn and experiment with their new devices. But more technical users are already chaffing to hack the iPhone.

By its very nature, Google is going to be as hands off as possible. This is not due to good will on its part. Google is interested in making money on ads, not being a type of mobile police officer. It is even ignoring the small amounts of cash that it could make from cut in app download revenues. Google is interested in preserving its cash cow and can be generous on every other aspect of its operating system and app store. What is really interesting is how older companies like Microsoft approach the new mobile market with the same outlook as before. Someone at Microsoft should really sit down with Ballmer and explain the rational in giving away software. They might want to start by showing how much money Google could make with mobile ads if it can corner the market the way that it did on the regular Internet.

If you follow the mobile market, then you know that there are essentially 4 operating systems that are really making wavies. The two oldest are the Blackberry, which is closed source and private, and Symbian, which was recently purchased by Nokia and made open source and free. Both of these systems are rather old school. Their basic code was written before the days of social networking and user generated content. The last two are the newest, the Apple iPhone, which is closed and private, and Google’s Android, which is open source and free. Both of these two systems were freshly created with the newest Internet applications in mind.

There are lots of other programming languages for mobile devices that you just don’t hear much about anymore. Sometimes you hear about the open source effort of Linmo, a kind of open source Linux for smartphones, mentioned in the same sentence as the Google Android, which borrowed heavily from it. But without a big company and an even bigger marketing effort, it is unlikely that it will be able to compete with other free, solid operating systems. The other big loser is Java for mobile phones, also called J2ME. It has dropped in importance so much that Handango, a top distributor of mobile applications, will not even distribute free J2ME applications anymore. Ouch!

I realize that Google is being extremely hands-off with respect to who used the Android platform and how. But what kind of strategy is it to release the new G1 phone, the first of its kind, into Walmart at a $30 discount within a month and a half of its official release? Driving the high-end market down is sure to hurt Nokia, but will it backfire and make Apple look even more desirable and high end? Is this the only way for Google, Verizon and HTC to make the sales numbers on the G1 that they has promised?

This is going to be a crazy holiday season. But it will be a great time to be a consumer.

It looks like Google may be finally getting some respect for Android. Some, that is.

If you have been following the Google Phone, then you know that the very first one is supposed to debut on the T-Mobile network. The press conference showing off the new device was last week. This device is designed by HTC, one of the bigger risk takers among the cell phone manufacturers. But it may have been enough to convince other manufacturers to jump into the Google pool.

If you believe the gossip, Motorola is supposedly hiring engineers to put together some of their own Android phones. Sony Ericsson is still on the fence testing the OS but is very interested.

Apple seems to have taken notice. It has introduced another game changer in this wild smartphone world. Geeks around the world can finally rejoice. Apple is selling unlocked iPhones in Hong Kong. You can use one of these iPhones on any network that you have an acount (and that matches the technology of the network of course). Sure it costs at least $700 for the 8G version, but it takes that network operators completely out of the profit equation for Apple.

The music industry rues the day that Apple launched iTunes and iPods. Will AT&T look back at the iPhone and feel the same way? My bet is yes, but this day has been coming for a long time.

Speaking of music, everyone uses MP3 files, but you may not be aware that companies actually have to pay royalties to use the format because it is patented. Alcatel-Lucent thought that they were going to get a $1.5 billion from Microsoft for their use of MP3 in their products. But a judge has just squashed that old ruling. And this has nothing to do with the $16 million that Microsoft has already paid to another organization that claims to hold the patents on MP3.

The Google Phone is officially no longer vaporware.

At the press conference which showed off the phone, the most important pieces of the phone were announced, its pricing. The price of the phone will be $179, a few dollars less than the $199 iPhone from AT&T. The data plan is also a little less. For unlimited Internet and and limited messaging, T-Mobile will charge $25/month, a few dollars less than AT&T’s unlimited plan at $30.

It seems unlikely that anyone who has enough money to by an iPhone or a Google phone would really notice a few dollars difference. After all, the difference is on the order of a latte or two.

The key difference between the phones at this stage seem to be the programs that third party developers will build for the Google phone and its extremely open platform. Does anyone else think that it is a little strange that the success of Google’s mobile phone will depend on small third party software developers? Maybe Google should just hire a team of the most creative of them and be done with it.