4 ms·

It does require a step back to realise the magnitude of change: Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones. On the surface, that's both

by halo 15y ago

It does require a step back to realise the magnitude of change: Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones. On the surface, that's both astounding and completely unexpected. Google put itself into that position by being a neutral 3rd party that manufacturers could trust coupled with a realisation that most phone manufacturers were great at hardware but terrible at software. The outcome is that the companies who didn't see software as their competency and were willing to drop their OSes (Samsung, Motorola, HTC) have reaped the benefits while companies whose strengths were based around their software being slightly better than their competitors (RIM, Nokia) have fallen behind.

masklinn 15y ago
> Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones. Yes and no: they have a similar marketshare, but Microsoft had marketshare and money. Google only has the marketshare (and in a limited fashion at that, since implementors "improve the experience" pretty drastically) and get little to no money out of it (likewise for a number of their implementors, too). And implementors are anything but locked in, as Android holds little software primacy. It does have a lively store, catching onto iOS's, but Android is not "essential", and so far I've not seen any critical software running on android and android only. This means with a little business acumen and some software investment (note that they usually fail at both, but...) most Android implementors can get away from Android pretty fast. And in fact most seem to keep hedging their bets (apart from Moto anyway), either by having WP handsets as well (HTC) or by keeping a ready and used "internal" OS (Samsung's bada)
- nknight 15y ago
  Where are you people getting this "Android makes no money for Google" perception from? Android makes money for Google in exactly the same way all of their other products/services make money: Advertising.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  It's really just very very early for the smartphone market, and Android is the fastest growing mobile OS. Its potential is more like 20x bigger user base than it has now. They will be able to make a lot more money than they do now from Android.

by halo 15y ago

masklinn 15y ago

> Google have managed strumble into Microsoft's position in phones. Yes and no: they have a similar marketshare, but Microsoft had marketshare and money. Google only has the marketshare (and in a limited fashion at that, since implementors "improve the experience" pretty drastically) and get little to no money out of it (likewise for a number of their implementors, too). And implementors are anything but locked in, as Android holds little software primacy. It does have a lively store, catching onto iOS's, but Android is not "essential", and so far I've not seen any critical software running on android and android only. This means with a little business acumen and some software investment (note that they usually fail at both, but...) most Android implementors can get away from Android pretty fast. And in fact most seem to keep hedging their bets (apart from Moto anyway), either by having WP handsets as well (HTC) or by keeping a ready and used "internal" OS (Samsung's bada)

nknight 15y ago
Where are you people getting this "Android makes no money for Google" perception from? Android makes money for Google in exactly the same way all of their other products/services make money: Advertising.
nextparadigms 15y ago
It's really just very very early for the smartphone market, and Android is the fastest growing mobile OS. Its potential is more like 20x bigger user base than it has now. They will be able to make a lot more money than they do now from Android.