There was a time when Windows Mobile PDAs monopolized the market and it wasn’t even that long ago. Around 2012, Android started to take over a big chunk of the enterprise mobility industry and is now considered the operating system of choice without thinking for mobile devices in retail, transport & logistics, warehouse management, delivery service, etc.
While Android is now an excellent operating system for both general consumers and businesses, you may wonder if it would go through the same decline that happened to Windows Mobile – at least when it comes to enterprise devices. For me, this question began to feel more tangible when I accidentally encountered the fact that Google’s thought-provoking new operating system, Fuchsia, has been roaming around the internet for years. And the more I think about it, the more exciting future I see in this OS, especially when used for large business operations.
What is all the fuchs about?
So basically, Fuchsia is an operating system built from scratch. Unlike Android or Chrome OS, it does not run on a Linux kernel. The replacement is called Zircon – much younger than decades-old Linux and developed by Google itself. If you look at what Zircon kernel is built for, you’ll see why it sounds so promising for businesses who are eager to innovate for better productivity. This so-called micron kernel was designed to scale any application from embedded RTOS to mobile and desktop devices of all kinds. Obviously, that means Fuchsia was developed with the Internet Of Things in mind since it has the ability to run an electronic device as simple as a smart lightbulb and all the while running the latest desktop with a powerful main processor.
While consumer smartphones and personal computers are getting connected ever more than before thanks to the efforts of software developers in tech giants, all the new smart devices appearing in our homes every year seem still far from being “seamlessly connected” yet.
For businesses, the perfect connection and cooperation among all the smart devices, computers, and machines look even further away, although it makes perfect sense to make it happen. Amazon’s gigantic fulfillment centers are using more and more robots and machines, and retail businesses are getting more and more dependent on smart devices that help them achieve true digitalization and automation. For them, the OS that runs anything with a copper brain would be huge benefits already right now.
Fuchsia could solve many issues at once
As I mentioned already, Android is dominating the market and it does that for very good reasons. However, there are problems: Too many manufacturers build customized versions, updates are not passed on to users in time and there is an alarming number of threats and attacks. With a new platform from scratch, Google could eliminate those problems once and for all.
Will Fuchsia replace Android?
So someday, when Fuchsia devices are coming out to the market and solution-providers take on developing a new business solution that counts dozens of different devices with alien form, function, and technologies to each other and integrates them into one system, this might be a game-changer for big businesses. The current Enterprise Mobility Management solutions might expand to control and monitor not just traditional mobile computers or PCs, but also all-new kinds of machines, robots, etc.
For now, there are only assumptions about what Google (or other companies) would do with Fuchsia OS, and Google officially stated in 2019 that while Fuchsia is not a replacement for Android, as it is targeted at “modern phones and PCs”. As Fuchsia is still under development and won’t see the light of day very soon, Android is going to keep dominating enterprise mobile devices for years to come. However, when the change starts, I can foresee that whole new types of devices coming into the market.
