尽管苹果已被曝出其移动设备正偷偷记录用户的行踪，而且不打算作出回应，也不解释为何AT&T用户打不出电话等原因，但硅谷精英对iPhone的热情却并不因此而降温。

但在亚洲和其他发展中国家里面，最受期待的手机平台巨头还是Android。Android手机目前已开始在日本和中国风靡，在接下去的一年里，将有大量平价的新型Android出击这些市场。随着这个趋势，一些新的Android应用也会像潮水般出现，在中国尤其如此。

android-china

在充满不稳定和不确定因素的新兴市场中，Android的崛起几乎都在每个人的意料之中。从日本、中国、印尼和印度的市场规模，这些市场价格低廉、技术高端的设备，以及广大的游戏开发者和黑客等因素来看，我们不难判断有人将从这个领域中大赚一笔。

硅谷在亚洲企业，特别是在中国地区经常遭遇滑铁卢，但除非Google出现了具有“历史意义”的失败表现，它才可能阻碍Android在中国的未来发展，因为要做到这点它得比eBay、MySpace、Amazon败得更惨，或者谷歌需要遇到比退出中国更悲剧的事。

所以看到DCM公司在亚洲成立1亿美元的A-Fund基金，用来支援Android在亚洲的早期发展并不令人意外，真正出乎意料的是许多其他公司到目前依然没有效仿这种做法，成立类似的基金。而Android的发展也已经成为了中国创新工场的巨大推动力，这个创新工场由前谷歌中国地区副总裁李开复在半年前创立。（游戏邦注：创新工场还是Techcrunch在北京Disrupt会议的合作伙伴，今年的第三场TechCrunch大会将登陆北京，届时人们有望看到更多的Android创新产品）

DCM合伙人赵克仁表示，大约3个月前DCM、GREE以及KDDI在北京共进晚餐时提出了这个想法，当时他们一直讨论Android在这些重要国家市场中所拥有的机会，他表示“自由的时代即将来临，这可能是全世界用户第一次发现他们可以轻松通过手机平台，发挥聪明才智的时代，而如果是在美国，这样的情况则会受到各种限制。”

DCM资金将会集中于硅谷、北京以及东京的创业公司，并与这三地的合作伙伴共同协调做出投资决定。在大部分情况下，做出决定的会是DCM的现有成员，加上少量的额外雇员。这种做法听起来并不十分有效，但从DCM在中国的策略来看，我们就能发现他们一直很特立独行，总以单一的企业身份，而非作为拥有多个海外办事处的硅谷企业做出投资决定。到目前为止DCM的运转情况良好。

DCM目前还和许多亚洲地区的大腕公司进行了合作，包括中国的腾讯，日本最大的手机社交游戏巨头GREE以及日本第二大手机运营商KDDI。DCM本周还将宣布他们在美国增加的新合作伙伴。

赵克仁认为，如果初创企业想通过中国和日本市场获利，那么战略合作伙伴对他们会有很大的帮助；但初创企业如果害怕被更大的竞争对手挤兑，他们也可以拒绝这些战略合作伙伴。

市场竞争是这些初创企业最头疼的事情，当Android毫无悬念的成为一个巨大发展机遇时，有太多人想从这个价值1亿美元的蛋糕分一杯羹，这些人来自不同时区，不同文化，还可能还来自不同产业。现在在各个合伙人之间关于何时发布新闻已经出现了分歧，TechCrunch建议DCM在大约5小时内发布，因为他们在日本的合作伙伴已经向日本媒体做出了承诺。希望在投资开始之后这种合作关系会朝着更好的方向发展，它对于许多初创企业来说是个向亚洲市场进军的绝好机会。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

We’ve all got iPhone mania in the Valley, never mind that Apple tracks our every move and won’t explain why or that AT&T users can’t actually make calls.

But in Asia– and much of the rest of the developing world– the anticipated mobile giant is Android. Android phones are just starting to hit Japan and China, and a flood of cheap new models are expected to come on the market within the next year. Expect a flood of new apps to follow that, particularly in China where venture capital is flowing like water.

The rise of Android is as close to a no-brainer prediction as you can make with always volatile and uncertain emerging markets. Combine the market size of countries like Japan, China, Indonesia and India with cheap, increasingly-sophisticated devices and a massive base of gamemakers and hackers and someone’s going to make a lot of money.

Silicon Valley companies have a long track record of screwing up in Asia, especially China. But Google would have to screw up so monumentally badly to blow Android’s Asian future. It would have to screw up worse than eBay, MySpace, Amazon, AOL, and, ahem, Google already screwed up in China, combined.

So it’s not a surprise that DCM has launched a $100 million Asian A-Fund to support early-stage Android entrepreneurs. The surprise is that more firms haven’t been creating funds like these.

Android development has already been a huge thrust of Innovation Works, the incubator started by former head of Google China, Kaifu Lee, for about six months. (Innovation Works is also our partner in producing TechCrunch Disrupt in Beijing, so expect to see a lot of Android innovation at the conference this October. More news on Beijing Disrupt is coming soon.)

DCM general partner David Chao says the idea developed over dinner in Beijing with DCM, GREE and KDDI about three months ago where the group couldn’t stop talking about Android’s opportunity in their requisite countries. “There’s this explosion of freedom coming,” Chao says. “It’s probably the first time people all around the world feel like they can do something simple on mobile and unleash their talent. If we just did this in the US, it’d be incredibly restricting.”

DCM’s fund will focus on startups in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo and investment decisions will be jointly made by partners in all three locations. Mostly, that will be DCM’s existing staff, with a few extra hires. That may sound inefficient, but DCM has long been an outlier with its China strategy, making all its investment decisions as a single firm, not a Valley firm with international franchise offices. And, so far, it’s worked well for the firm.

DCM has partnered with some big Asian heavyweights including gaming giant Tencent, Japan’s largest mobile gaming social network GREE and Japan’s second largest mobile operator KDDI. DCM has additional partners in the United States that it will be announcing in coming weeks.

Chao described the role of the strategic partners as an advantage startups could chose to take advantage of if they wanted distribution help in China and Japan, or refuse if they were worried about those bigger competitors squashing them in the market.

Worries about competition are just one of the headaches with an undertaking like this. While Android is undoubtably a huge opportunity, there are a lot of cooks in this $100 million kitchen– not only across different time zones and cultures, but across different industries. Already, there was a dispute on the part of the various partners on when the news would be released. I woke up to DCM moving the news release up by about five hours, thanks to a promise a Japanese partner made to the Japanese media. Let’s hope the coordination gets better once investments start, because it’s a huge opportunity for startups to leverage these massive markets at once.（source:techcrunch）