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He's not wrong but I don't agree. Advertising is a form of payment not an end in itself. People still pay Google they just do it in attention which Google tha

He's not wrong but I don't agree. Advertising is a form of payment not an end in itself. People still pay Google they just do it in attention which Google than turns into money by selling that attention to someone else. So to say Google isn't a platform company because they're really trying to control the ad market with their platform is like calling Microsoft a money company because they're trying to control the OS to sell Office. Also I don't think Google's best interest is in pushing the market away from "paid for software". If you're giving something away for free it helps you to have someone trying to sell it because you can get away with more. Google Docs is missing a ton of Office features but people rarely mention them because...it's free. So it's in their best interest to keep paid options around. If everyone was free they'd have to really compete.

lukeschlather 16y ago
The article said nothing about Google being a platform company, only that they're not looking to build a mobile platform in Android. A possibly more direct way of looking at this is that Android does not, from Google's perspective, compete with iOS. Google's intention is to make the same money whichever operating system the user is running, and Android only exists to enable new services that Apple moves to slow to allow (like Navigation.)
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  Right. I'm saying Google is a platform company (among other things) BECAUSE they're building a mobile platform. I'm disputing the fact that he doesn't think that. The logic I used is this... - Apple is a platform company because they charge people money for their platform - That defines a standard of "A platform company is a company that creates a platform and trades it for something of value [in Apple's case money]" - Google creates a platform [Android] - The only difference is Google's "something of value" is attention. They then trade that attention for money in the case of Ads So Google does compete with iOS. The only difference is they're deriving value differently (one directly from payment the other from Ads). But if someone buys an iPhone they aren't seeing the Ads Google's trying to deliver through Android and if someone buys an Android phone Apple isn't getting that person's money. So they're most certainly in competition (On your last point to say Google doesn't care what OS the user is running doesn't track for me. Apple has demonstrated their intention to dominate the iPhone "App Ad" market and muscle others out of it if they can)
  - lukeschlather 16y ago
    Android is not the platform Google is selling. Google Apps is the platform Google is selling. You can access Google Apps through an Android device, but Google doesn't make a meaningfully larger amount of money when you do than when you access Google Apps through any other means.

lukeschlather 16y ago

The article said nothing about Google being a platform company, only that they're not looking to build a mobile platform in Android. A possibly more direct way of looking at this is that Android does not, from Google's perspective, compete with iOS. Google's intention is to make the same money whichever operating system the user is running, and Android only exists to enable new services that Apple moves to slow to allow (like Navigation.)

TomOfTTB 16y ago
Right. I'm saying Google is a platform company (among other things) BECAUSE they're building a mobile platform. I'm disputing the fact that he doesn't think that. The logic I used is this... - Apple is a platform company because they charge people money for their platform - That defines a standard of "A platform company is a company that creates a platform and trades it for something of value [in Apple's case money]" - Google creates a platform [Android] - The only difference is Google's "something of value" is attention. They then trade that attention for money in the case of Ads So Google does compete with iOS. The only difference is they're deriving value differently (one directly from payment the other from Ads). But if someone buys an iPhone they aren't seeing the Ads Google's trying to deliver through Android and if someone buys an Android phone Apple isn't getting that person's money. So they're most certainly in competition (On your last point to say Google doesn't care what OS the user is running doesn't track for me. Apple has demonstrated their intention to dominate the iPhone "App Ad" market and muscle others out of it if they can)
- lukeschlather 16y ago
  Android is not the platform Google is selling. Google Apps is the platform Google is selling. You can access Google Apps through an Android device, but Google doesn't make a meaningfully larger amount of money when you do than when you access Google Apps through any other means.