Angus Kidman12 January 2009, 4:12 PM
INTERVIEW | Agora phone mastermind Ruslan Kogan explains to APC why Android phones are still tricky to develop. PLUS: FIRST VIDEO OF A KOGAN AGORA!
Everyone's excited by Android, but actual sightings on the show floor at CES were as rare as hen's teeth. Agora phone mastermind Ruslan Kogan explains to APC why Android phones are still tricky to develop, why Windows Mobile can't make the grade, how he has no interest bundling Skype with Agora, how Kogan intends to cash in on worldwide demand for the phone, and its plans for Internet-enabling its TV and DVD player range.
The status of the Kogan Agora as the second mainstream Android mobile seems assured. While many market watchers imagined that CES 2009, which has just closed in Las Vegas, would see a stream of announcements of Android-enabled mobile phones, that didn't prove to be the case.
Above: Kogan founder Ruslan Kogan in front of the Android-based Kogan Agora smartphone.
A number of other non-mobile devices in early development were on show, including the NIMble desktop phone, Giinii's Movit Mini tablet and Celio's Redfly. However, actual mobiles — still the main target for the Google-backed, open source operating system — were nowhere to be seen. So when the Agora makes its appearance in late January, it will indeed be the only Android phone on the market that's not locked to a single network.
Given that any manufacturer can potentially use Android, why the delay? Ruslan Kogan, the founder and head of Agora manufacturer Kogan Technologies, reckons that it's because the manufacturing supply chain is yet to catch up. "With Android, there's a lot of companies that have announced that they are developing for it, but it's only been a couple of months since the software's been made public," Kogan told APC in Las Vegas, where he's been visiting CES to meet with manufacturers and journalists.
The driver challenge
"What's happening at the moment is there's only a few manufacturers of all of those components for mobile phones." For the Agora, most of the drivers had to be developed internally, since the manufacturers hadn't yet caught up with the source code.
However, Kogan doesn't think that situation will last for too long. "All of those manufacturers would have to be crazy not to be developing public drivers for those chipsets. I don't think we're very far from seeing a whole lot of Android phones on the market. I think by the end of this year there'll be a lot of these on the market and it's going to be good for the mobile industry."
One likely impact of Android will be to change the general perception of lesser-known phone brands, Kogan predicted.
"One of the great things that Android's going to do is up until now people have said 'cheap Chinese mobile' and they've had a very bad perception. People don't realise that it's the manufacturing capital. Where do you think all your phones are coming from?"
The main problem has been one of interfaces, he suggested. "I don't think Windows Mobile has been a great operating system, and on top of that it costs money to add to the platform, and the ones that are not Windows Mobile are made by the Chinese manufacturers."
"What Android's going to do is it's going to standardise the user interface. It's Google, it's good. Any Chinese phone will soon be loaded with Android and that'll change people's perception very quickly."
Going global
When APC last caught up with Kogan in November, he said that the company might produce specific local models of the Agora with appropriate power adaptors for international markets if demand was high enough. Those plans are now going ahead for two countries, Kogan said. "For the US and Germany that will happen. For others, all it needs is a $5 power adaptor." Orders for the phone have come from more than 150 different countries.
Given that strong reaction, Kogan has also fast-tracked overall plans for expansion outside Australia. "We were planning to expand into the UK and the US; we've pushed plans for that forward substantially. We will be in the US within three months, we will be in the UK in six months, and by the end of the year, we'll have our full product range in both of those areas." Kogan will continue with the same business model it has used in Australia, with all non-core functions handled by outside agencies. "Anything that's not our speciality, we outsource."
Delivery centres will be set up on the east and west coasts of the US and in the UK, with the latter also delivering smaller products throughout mainland Europe. "We're just going to grow our team in Melbourne and keep all the product knowledge there."
The Skype issue
Undoubtedly the most prominent announcement relating to Android during CES was Skype making a version of its VOIP software available for mobiles. Skype itself foresees difficulties with getting manufacturers to bundle the software, since so many phones are sold via operators who have no interest in promoting ways of making cheaper calls that don't give them a revenue cut.
Because the Agora is being sold off-network, that issue doesn't arise — but Kogan says there are no plans to include Skype, or any other extra applications, on the Agora.
"There's so much behind-the-scenes work for that sort of stuff, and it's all going to be on the Google Martketplace anyway. I'd much rather customers take out their phone, decide what they want to download and download it. The whole bundling thing and making exclusive arrangements, I'm not really into it. Google Marketplace is great on the Android phone; there's already a lot of apps out there, and Google's making a lot of incentives for people to develop them.
"There's no point in my wasting time coming to these agreements with people where we can just release a phone and customers can do it."
New Kogan hardware
As such, future enhancements to Agora are more likely to be on the hardware front. One popular suggestion online has been to add an accelerometer, "which we're currently looking at for the future". Kogan doesn't have a strict forward timeline for developing new models, though he's keen to avoid updates that are purely cosmetic. "If I can make an improvement each time, I'm happy to make as many models as it takes."
Another technology trend evident at CES which Kogan does plan to adopt has been the move to Internet-enable entertainment devices such as televisions and disc players. "We're in the process of introducing Internet connections into our TVs," he said. "We're a couple of weeks away from launching our new Blu-ray player, which allows for an Internet connection and all sorts of interactive content. Our TVs are a few months away from that." LED TVs are also on the menu for later in 2009, Kogan said, as component prices continue to fall.
Video of a Kogan Agora in use