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Samsung has 20% of the market and a lot more of the high end market. Going with "not Google" means a lot of users no longer using Google Play Store and services

Samsung has 20% of the market and a lot more of the high end market. Going with "not Google" means a lot of users no longer using Google Play Store and services. It most certainly would "affect" Google. It’s a game of chicken and one Samsung can’t win, but Google probably doesn’t want to inflict on them. Look at how well Huawei is doing outside China without google services (they’re dead in the water). Samsung doesn’t want that and can’t build an app ecosystem on their own. If Google pulls them and android and more importantly the android SDKs and dev tools toward Fuschia, I guarantee you that Samsung will follow. At the same time I think Google would be foolish to intentionally antagonize one of their most successful partners. If Samsung’s bungled reaction was to try to go it alone with Tizen or hold out upgrading their phones to a new android, it only helps Apple and iOS, and that’s the last thing google wants.

tbodt 6y ago
*Fuchsia
close04 6y ago
> It’s a game of chicken and one Samsung can’t win Indeed, they most likely can't (easily) make Tizen a commercial success to rival Android, and even using an Android fork would still be far from ideal without Google's Play Services. But Google probably can't legally sustain this position for long and hold OEMs hostage, especially with all the antitrust scrutiny they are facing now. Conditioning access to the Play Services on using exclusively Google on every device sounds like something that could be considered anti-competitive.
- philistine 6y ago
  My understanding was not that a manufacturer had to use a Google OS on all their devices, but that they could not ship Android without Google services. So Samsung can (and has in minuscule quantities) ship a Tizen phone. Or a Windows phone. They just cannot ship an AOSP phone.
  - CountSessine 6y ago
    Everyone in China ships AOSP phones. You’re completely free to. But everyone wants google services because everywhere outside China, they’re ubiquitous. And Tizen will never be a successful software ecosystem on the order of android or iOS. Samsung is all thumbs when it comes to software. They don’t understand how to build and sustain a software platform and what third party devs need.

tbodt 6y ago

*Fuchsia

close04 6y ago

> It’s a game of chicken and one Samsung can’t win Indeed, they most likely can't (easily) make Tizen a commercial success to rival Android, and even using an Android fork would still be far from ideal without Google's Play Services. But Google probably can't legally sustain this position for long and hold OEMs hostage, especially with all the antitrust scrutiny they are facing now. Conditioning access to the Play Services on using exclusively Google on every device sounds like something that could be considered anti-competitive.

philistine 6y ago
My understanding was not that a manufacturer had to use a Google OS on all their devices, but that they could not ship Android without Google services. So Samsung can (and has in minuscule quantities) ship a Tizen phone. Or a Windows phone. They just cannot ship an AOSP phone.
- CountSessine 6y ago
  Everyone in China ships AOSP phones. You’re completely free to. But everyone wants google services because everywhere outside China, they’re ubiquitous. And Tizen will never be a successful software ecosystem on the order of android or iOS. Samsung is all thumbs when it comes to software. They don’t understand how to build and sustain a software platform and what third party devs need.