Maybe this will be outdated thinking after WWDC next week where Apple unveils iPhone 4.0 and the opportunity for iPhone Native Apps, but for some reason I do not so….

As Smartphone penetration continues to grow and grow, developers are going nuts with all the different platforms.  Google has thrown more and more fuel in the fire by creating a platform of fragmentation with all the different Android Versions.

Was this on purpose? Well after the Google I/O conference it really feels like that is the plan….. Create as much confusion as possible so that everybody reverts back to the Web and HTML5

Now look at Apple.  Fighting like hell with Adobe over Flash. Making it even more difficult for developers to decide which way to go?  Should I build a application in Flash and not see the distribution or should I go with the iPhone App.  Well Google threw another wrench in the game by saying that they are fully supportive of Flash and let this platform thrive on Android;  “We are Open, Apple isn’t” .

So where does leave developers as the full HTML5 integration is still not on all devices browsers yet, but it is pretty clear that if you build a great version of a mobile site instead of an app in HTML5 you get all the benefits of the web and also a great user experience.   Look at what Google has done with Gmail ( one of their Flagship applications besides Search).

There are many tools for web developers to create mobile sites.  It is clear in my mind the ones that bring a consistent web experience to mobile that incorporate application development tools and enablers to replace making a separate application is where the market it going. Many of the mobile site builder companies lost focus by trying to become everything  ( incorporating ad servers, creating separate content management systems) but what a great mobile site builder company needs to do is to just create tools for developers that gives then the best integration of HTML5 and mobile specific enablers and applications ( such as maps, etc….).

What I find interesting is that Adobe is driving HTML5 more then anybody else, and with the lastest release of Dreamweaver CS5. Designers can simultaneously create one-website with multiple views.  What ever happened to the Openscreen Project? Just make it HTML5!

With all the recent debate over fragmentation, it just made me look at this from an other angle. Could fragmentation be actually a good thing?  If we look at the mobile today there are about 4500 different devices that all have slightly different screen sizes and formats.  Even though they are all quite different when it comes to the device feature set, there is one area that is not fragmenting, but converging….  This has been around the browser.

With some of the recent advances in HTML5 and the lastest roadmap shared at the Google I/O conference, it makes one wonder if fragmentation was part of the master plan over at Google.  Let all the device manufacturers fight over there differences in features and functionality of the OS, but keep one thing consistent and moving forward…. the browser and the web.

With the release of Froyo ( Android 2.2), again there have been lots of complaints from partners like Sony-Ericsson and others.  However, what Google has shown is the convergence between online-mobile with the HTML5 feature set.

I am convinced that there is some kind of thinking and strategy around fragmentation driving users back to the browser and the growth of the Chrome Web-App storefront that will shortly converge with mobile.