Android Goes To the Battlefield

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 24, 2009 @04:23AM from the not-the-terminator-kind dept.

wiseandroid writes "Google's mobile operating system Android has won plenty of adherents among cellphone makers and gadget manufacturers since its 2007 debut. Now defense contractor Raytheon is preparing it for a more urgent mission: saving lives in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Using Android software tools, Raytheon engineers have built a basic application for military personnel that combines maps with a buddy list. Raytheon calls the entire framework the Raytheon Android Tactical System, or RATS for short. Mark Bigham, a vice president of business development in Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems unit, says the company selected Android because its open source nature made developing applications easy."

1 of 128 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

I do not believe this man! by bogaboga · 2009-10-24 04:52 · Score: 0, Troll

Mark Bigham, a vice president of business development in Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems unit, says the company selected Android because its open-source nature made developing applications easy." (emphasis mine)
If that was the case, then Open Source systems would have more applications than closed source counterparts. But this is hardly the case.
In addition, I see far more substandard, half-baked software on "open" systems than closed ones. What's going on?
An example: Open Source OO.o is still as buggy and a pain to use on its Open source native OS (read Linux), though it runs and feels better on closed source Windows. This is after a decade of development. Do not tell me OO.o does not have resources. I just do not understand this argument.