Anthony Caruana24 February 2009, 12:20 PM
Kogan CEO, Ruslan Kogan has revealed details of the upcoming Agora 2 handset, following on from the aborted launch of the original Agora smartphone.
Named after the Greek for "marketplace" the Agora 2 will boast a 3.5 inch touchscreen and look very much like Apple's iPhone but run the next iteration of Google's Android OS, codenamed "cupcake". Kogan told APC that a precise release date was "out of our hands" but revealed that the hardware is ready now.
Kogan told us that he believes that what Google does is usually "best of breed" and that he has no intention of looking to other operating systems such as Windows Mobile or Symbian. He claims that the power of the open source community is far more powerful and can deliver a better outcome than licensed platforms.
Kogan, never short of a word on what the opposition are doing, said that he thought the iPhone's time of market leadership was short and that if Google withdrew licensing of Maps that the iPhone platform would cease to dominate. When we reminded him that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was a member of Apple's Board of Directors, he seemed a little surprised.
One of the factors limiting Kogan's ability to deliver the Agora is that although the Android operating system is open source, many of the applications that run on the platform require licensing. In an explosive revelation, he said that this may be why, despite the hoopla surrounding Google's open source mobile OS, that only one manufacturer had brought a product to market. When the next wave of Android devices hits the market, Kogan told us that the Agora would be "right there".
It remains to be seen if Kogan's business model of selling products directly to customers, bypassing wholesalers and stores, at low margins will work with a mobile phone. The Australian market is still largely built around customers buying phones from carriers on contract or with pre-paid packages rather than outright and independently of a carrier.