Follow the money, and the jobs, to Android [Video]

Rising R&D spending on Android paints a bright future for the platform

Credit: quietbits / Shutterstock

It’s one thing to track the future of a mobile platform by projecting trends in unit sales, wireless operator contract wins, and so on. Based on traditional analysis, it looks like the iPhone and Android will be running neck and neck in 2012 in terms of global market share. I’ve always believed that the more reliable predictions are rooted in tracking investment not by consumers or investors, but developers. Software development dollars being budgeted and spent now are aimed at reaping the opportunities of markets two years away.

I live in a region so thick with telecommunications companies and the businesses that serve them that I can derive a decent forecast of the mobile and wireless sectors by standing on my roof with binoculars. Everything from freeway traffic to the For Sale signs in front yards are barometers …